Alloy wheels, climate control... and a cuddly koala bear

Having had a truly educational experience researching and writing about these fascinating motor cars over the past couple of days, I have been amused to see their owner’s comments – either enthusiastic or scathing – about the tiller steering systems fitted to most vehicles in the late 19th Century, with the steering of many of these pioneering cars subsequently being converted to a ‘regular’ round wheel in the early 20th Century, when a circular steering device became the norm

More than 120 years on, finding a brand new car that still uses a tiller system to steer is rare, but not impossible, as amazingly such machines do still exist!   Take the QPod Sport, for example, built by SECMA near Lille, and one of the few brand new cars still sold in Britain with a tiller handlebar steering system as standard. The sporting Eco-Exo also has standard handlebar steering as, but upgrade to the more for the expensive Eco-Exo R, and you get a regular round steering wheel to help you through the twisty bits.

Whilst the standard specification of virtually all cars has included a steering wheel for over a century now, receiving a koala bear cuddly toy, a handbag, umbrella or collapsible motorcycle as one of the standard features of your new car at no extra cost is rather more surprising.

In a (sometimes desperate) bid to woo new car buyers to choose a particular make or model, car companies have equipped their models with many unusual features as standard over the years, with some resorting to lame marketing gimmicks as well to attract prospective customers into their deserted showrooms. 

A great example of the latter is Ford’s famously failed brand Edsel. By the late 1950s, when consumer demand for new Edsels had reduced to a mere trickle, the floundering American marque offered any customer bold enough to take a test drive the opportunity to win a pony! Fiat tried a similar scheme in the 1980s with its Regata, with the test drive reward being a wooden ‘flying’ seagull that flapped its painted wings in the breeze when hung from the ceiling!

Sporting goods have proven to be a popular car specification enhancement over the years. The special edition Fiat Panda Italia 90, for example, came with a standard Italian-team football in the boot, whilst the Lancia Y10 Fila, based on the Panda’s platform, had a Fila-branded sports bag, loaded with a sport towel, training shoes and other gear. The Peugeot 806 Eden Park limited edition had leather rugby ball shaped head restraints as standard, and Rolls-Royce went one better by including an actual rugby ball – trimmed in the same leather as the Wraith 2015 Rugby World Cup edition’s sumptuous interior – rolling around in the boot.

The low-volume £180,000 Range Rover Holland & Holland includes an exquisite tailored leather-trimmed load space, safely housing a pair of handcrafted Holland & Holland guns. Conversely, the rustic rear-engined Russian ZAZ 968M took game hunting to a considerably more basic level.  Standard fitment in the ZAZ was a removable metal flap in the passenger’s front foot well, designed with the sole purpose of ice hole fishing, allowing the car to be driven onto a frozen lake to fish for grayling and sturgeon.

Other unusual standard car equipment has included the no-cost-option of a rear-facing front passenger seat on LHD two-door DKW F-109 models, enabling concerned parents to keep on eye their offspring on the back seat, whilst the Citroen XM and 1970s Lotus Elite were fitted with a secondary rear window to prevent rear seat passengers necks getting cold when the tailgate was opened. 

In its domestic Japanese market, range-topping versions the early 1980s Honda City (sold as Jazz in Europe) came with a foldable Motocompo scooter in the boot, whilst closer to home, the 1960s Tornado Typhoon was equipped with a pair of gentleman’s cuff links in the glove box. Another glove box treat was a cuddly koala bear soft toy, hiding in the glove box of the Nissan Aussie models, an export version of the Australian-built Pintara, sold in Japan.

The Alfa Romeo Alfa 90s had a detachable executive briefcase, which doubled up as the glove box, with the Fiat 127 Palio, Matra Bagheera Courreges and Alfasud Valentino, among others, featuring detachable handbags. The Nissan Almera was the first car to feature a standard curry hook, and the Roding Roadster the first to have a ski holder within its central console. 

The ultimate no-cost ‘standard’ car feature though was offered on the V12-engined Series 2 Jaguar XJ12 and Daimler Double-Six saloons, which proved difficult to sell during the mid-1970s fuel crisis. To help shift these desirable but thirsty luxury machines, a consortium of large British Leyland dealer groups, including Henlys, offered every V12 saloon buyer a brand new Mini 850 for free. At that time a frugal Mini was a ‘feature’ worth having…

Panda image courtesty of Dennis Elzinga via Creative Commons

Mini image courtesy of Keld Gydum via Creative Commons