I really like that strategy. I have used that strategy for a long, long, time.
That strategy worked great for me for decades, even carrying me through Jag race school and track time.
Perfect driving record... no accidents, no tickets, no contact, nothing. Over 40 years...

Then Miss Martinez happened and that strategy failed. Big time.

Early the morning of Sep 16 2016, I'll never forget it, the young miss blew though her red light at 50 mph in her late model Cadillac as I was slowly proceeding through an intersection I had gone through hundreds of times before. She T-boned me right behind the passenger door at speed, throwing me and my 1.5-ton 4WD camper van 60 feet from the center of the intersection and into an irrigation ditch.

I should have died. If she had hit me a fraction of a second earlier or later, I would have.
The impact was so massive, it opened up the body welds on the far side of my vehicle.
But she hit me in the one place that allowed my vehicle to both bend and act as a marshmallow, absorbing her energy.
So I didn't die.

Two weeks later, I narrowly missed getting T-boned again by a texting kid who blew a rural stop sign in front of me.

A week after that, another distracted young driver rear ended and totaled my backup car.

Two years later, my replacement car was rear-ended and totaled by another very young driver.

I still have my now 45-year perfect no-citation driving record.
I still have all my race training.
And I still drive as if I just won't wreck it, too.

But all that just doesn't seem to mean much with all the people out there texting and driving anymore.

 

Sorry that you had to go through those experiences..

My original comment was flippant because frankly the argument on keeping 20 year old airbag in a car with no roof and a body so flimsy that the windshield will crack if you only jack one side up is ludicrous. What is that puffy little balloon going to save when the rest of the structure around folds like a tin can? If it even still ignites?

it's like people that can't help but to voice their disdain for motorcycles or Rock and Roll music. The folks you are trying to influence could care less only it this case it's worse because you're driving a the same death trap I am, you just still have a crappy wheel out of a 96 lincoln town car.

Also in the 6 years since the original post and living on the edge with no air bag, I've replaced that NRG wheel with a deep dish Nardi wheel with cruise buttons on the horn (I haven't gotten around to modifying original cruise circuit board to get them to work yet though and maybe never will) but I do like the nardi wheel better.

 

Wow, with stories like this I'm afraid to drive my car or my motorcycle !

 

Really like the style of the Nardi wheel! I have been looking at the Nardi Kallista in black perforated leather. The wheel centre adapter I found is manufactured by Volanti Luisi.

Are you satisfied with the driving position in respect to how far you stretch your arms with the setup?

 

This is the Nardi Kallista

 

Since we are being frank now, I just read this as fake news propagated by someone who feels the need to defend their choice of "customization" at all cost.

Likewise insulting the rest of us as if your choice is superior is not a way to win support.

A simple "thanks for your concern" would have been less abrasive and not relegated you into the bucket of those to be disregarded.

FWIW I like your latest choice better than the first one, although both have a bit too much shiny metal for my taste, which to me seems out of place on the older cars without the shiny gauge/shift bezels.

 

It looks beautiful. And apologies for hijacking your thread for a bit by getting all pedantic about modification risk and liability.

 

I’ve always been a big believer in that it’s your car, do whatever you want with it.

Still, I’m +1 to Rothwell on this one.

Previously put a Moto Lita steering wheel on a 1970 Triumph GT6..... Thought it was good at the time, but I admit the end result was S&&t! Still we live and learn.

 

Not to be pedantic (right, only 696 words left!), but perhaps clearing up a couple of misconceptions that might help someone assess risk, because taking additional risk is what you are doing, such as the added risk from driving motorcycles.

1. Rigidity is not safety. Unlike in the 40s, cars are designed to crumple, buckle, etc in such a way as to keep the engine/other structural components/other car/trees/concrete from moving into your knees/chest/head and crushing them. The XK8 is no different and is designed to modern standards. Cracking the windshield from flexural torsion has nothing to do with the car's safety.

2. The lack of roof was compensated for by a space frame strut system that doesn't protect the windshield from severe dynamic point loads from below, but protects you. Unless you roll, and it would be difficult to roll, this is not a particular factor in safety. The US DOT only tests a couple of sedans a year in rollover because the additional risk is very very low unless you have an SUV, and if you aren't wearing your belt. You could roll it if you were trying, but that is a different category of risk one has taken on that has little to do with the roof.

3. The 20 year old airbags in the XK8 were designed to protect you in frontal and side collisions. They are well advanced for their time. If you remove the frontal airbag, designed to protect your head from contact and assist with your torso when you are belted/unbelted, you are much more likely to ride up into the header, and much more likely to hit your head on the wheel (comparison: baseball bat or cricket bat to the head) and much more likely to have torso and extremity injuries (comparison: baseball bat or cricket bat to the chest)/arms/legs). Some of this depends on circumstances and driver height. My guess is that the driver population here skews taller/heavier than the rest of the population, so header and top of the wheel it is with a heaping helping of torso injuries.

In fact, you increase your risk of moderate/severe head injury by about 40% over belt/airbag, keeping in mind that the comparison cars at the time of the studies on this (1990's) were designed to be used with belts alone, so the actual risk in removing an airbag that was designed with the system may be much worse. In a non pretensioned belt scenario, you increase your potential for other injuries by about 85% because that head airbag was designed to help the belt manage the energy of your torso too.

For anyone interested, a good article by my colleagues at the Medical College of Wisconsin outlines the risk assessments I just quoted. These were used by US DOT (and the world) in producing regulations for car safety.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217397/

4. 20 year old airbags are highly, highly likely to fire with the intended function. If anything in automobile engineering has been rock solid, it is airbags, especially since the mid 1990's. Simple, robust. Here's an article on on when the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tested a pair of early 70's Impala airbags in the 1990s. Interestingly, though airbags from the 80's are likely marginally worse than those from the mid 90's to late 00's (technical issues with the sealing and water on a limited number of earlier systems, but no real evidence that this is more than a theoretical problem), the ones after (10's) may be a minuscule amount worse because of increasing complexity in the firing structure/logic and electronics. The tradeoff is that the system risk of injury is probably reduced from the added complexity (hopefully). Entertaining article on the Impala tests:

https://www.autonews.com/article/201...irbags-held-up

So, I know you were using hyperbole for an effect, but, in reality, the XK8 appears to me to be similar in safety performance to other modern/current vehicles in its weight class (pretty heavy for a 'two seater' which also helps) and qualitatively better than the usual small convertible.

The risk is qualitatively increased by removing the airbag, as noted above, but is nowhere near the risk of driving a motorcycle. Driving a motorcycle increases your risk of fatal injuries by about 1600% over driving a sedan (or XK8).

Knowing these things, as always, please assess risk to your personal taste...

 

yes both wheels were a marked improvement when the top is up I no longer have to rub my head on the ceiling because of having to sit up and reach the wheel. Obviously the deep dish gives even more ability to recline.

 

Claim fake news all you want but I Give you exhibit a. And please take it easy I’m only really insulting the suits at Ford that penciled whipped out whatever wheel jag had designed for it.

if you like your wheel you can keep your wheel.

 

With all due respect, Ford and Lincoln actually took a lot of things from Jaguar and made them "their own". Styling cues on the Fords look strangely like Aston Martin, the big Ford and Lincoln SUVs look awfully similar to Range Rovers, Lincolns look like Jaguars, and of course there's the AJ V8 that many people believe Ford came up with. Ford seems to be the only U.S. manufacturer with a DOHC, 32 valve V8 with VVT.

 

Aesthetics aside, which are a matter of personal preference, the car companies have regulations they need to meet (not optional). It was not a Ford conspiracy that makes a Lincoln steering wheel look like an XK steering wheel or vice versa, see below for Exhibit b, the DB7, Exhibit c, the Porsche Boxter and Exhibit d. the Ferrarii 550 of the same era. It's not difficult to do this all day, for any car you can think of if you take more than the 30 seconds I took.

The NCAP (National Car Acceptance Program) or EuroNCAP etc. and associated federal regulations essentially make the wheel have a function to protect the head. They cannot do this without having an airbag in them, which rules out the small hub and spoke design of your preferred wheels. Airbags can only deploy reliably from a certain range of shapes and a design range for the range of occupants they need to protect, more complex and smaller shapes increase the risk that something 'off nominal' will happen, endangering the occupant. The OEM airbag manufacturers have no interest in increasing their liability with 'more artistic' designs. The designs also need to limit risk to your hands in crashes, ruling out metal edged spokes. The lawyers and designers probably did that together since there has been plenty of litigation on this.

Your preferred wheels will not meet these standards, and will not meet the standards of the 1970s's for that matter. The metal spokes are a litigation nightmare, as noted. Juries understand metal and sharp things. So car companies will not generally use that design and their designers will not design them like that after the 60s. It's not the suits, it is protecting your customer within the design space. Good design, good engineering essentially requires this.

In the US, there is no one stopping you from using your wheel, and I, personally, think no one should stop you, but it wasn't a vast conspiracy by anyone to not make wheels that conform to your aesthetics. Unless you consider the world car regulations to be a conspiracy, which might be supportable...

Exhibit b, Aston Martin, c 1998


Exhibit c, Porsche Boxter, c 1998.


Exhibit d. Ferrari 550, circa 2000

 

aesthetics aside is what got us here to begin with. There is no argument that the factory wheel with the airbag is designed to be safer. I’m telling you I don’t mind the risk. I’d rather be comfortable and in control from a position that allows me to focus. And have it look nice...to me.

We’re all guilty of putting aesthetics over safety when we went out and bought an xk8 over a Volvo or the other billion safer options including public transportation, aren’t we?

so that leaves the only motivation to bother writing all these paragraphs to what? Boredom, instigationas sport, a need to feel superior? How about we just calm down and start but using our turn signals.

I’d share a pic of my 65 Econoline pickup that doesn’t even have seatbelts and is 100% legal without them but I’d not want anyone breaking their pearls over it.

and any those wheels above look better than the factory jag wheel. Technology that I assure you came from an office near Lake Michigan. I had a 2001 Audi TT, that wheel was beautiful from the factory. They coulda done better and they did eventually on later models.

 

Feeling superior is always fun, but I was trying to feel educational, which is often better. Since I do this professionally, it's easy to quickly disgorge many paragraphs in pursuit of light and perfection. But I'm pretty sure I was trying to shed light on fairly common misconceptions on risk, you mentioned above (and I listed above) that you used to support your aesthetic choices. So, there's my motivation, actually education and entertainment, not boredom. Hopefully being helpful, but there's always the risk, assumed by me, that it wasn't.

So, we all agree there's additional risk to be had with your preferred wheel. I think we all agree that it's your risk and no one is faulting you for assuming it for yourself. We all likely agree that you'd not be able to drive this in Europe or the UK with that wheel, but it's okay in the US. We also likely agree that you could take every safety system off, including the brakes, in Mozambique, and no one would stop you (some pun about stopping yourself should follow here if I was trying to be funny, which I am).

So, there's lots of agreement.

Where we didn't agree was the implication that the XK8 is fairly unsafe (and the airbag thing) again partially repeated above, even compared with Volvos of that era or this era. We also didn't agree on why the XK8 does not have your preferred wheel style (you think Ford management, I think design constraints, see Exhibit e, the 2001 Audi TT below which doesn't look much like your stated preference, and you also need to explain why the Porsche wheel, which looks like the XK without the wood, was designed in Dearborn). I hope I shed light on both.

So, perhaps in the future, we can all agree that your aesthetics are yours, your risks are yours, and there is no point in dragging out the old Econoline van since it doesn't bear on your or my points at all.

By the way, down here in the south we clutch them, not break them, they're expensive. There's a clutch joke in there somewhere too.

Note added later: Brakes are required in Mozambique, and seat belts. So, we don't agree on the lack of brakes in Mozambique, but the joke about stopping was still funny to my wife.

Exhibit e. 2001 Audi TT, the defense rests and moves for summary judgement since this design proves the point
.

 

What I managed to derive from all the ranting is :

• XK8 steering wheels are not the same as Lincoln Town Car of that era
• XK8 steering wheels are the same as Aston Martin of that era

Thanks guys!

 

the moral is should you wish to change out your wheel, it should be the same boss kit as the xj8 and some folks and or authorities may not approve. Information which until this thread started 6 years ago, wasn’t readilyavailable.

And technically Detroit isn’t on Lake Michigan but that opportunity for condescension seems to have been missed for now.

 

Good moral. Another possible moral is that it's sometimes difficult to tell whether someone is being lighthearted or not in text. So, after nearly 40 years on the internet, I assume everyone is lighthearted unless the text is in all caps. Was tough in the early years with all caps.

Also, my friends in Dearborn would likely have more issue with 'Detroit' rather than 'Lake MIchigan', I think, though they have resigned themselves to it. As a southerner, it's all cold to me.