The McLaren F1’s Edge: Why Center-Seat Driving Isn’t More Common in High-Performance Vehicles

It’s actually pretty simple. Center driving requires a complete rethinking of vehicle layout, affecting everything from chassis design to aerodynamics. That level of complexity can scare off manufacturers, who would rather stick to conventional designs where the steering wheel is on the left or right — because it’s easier to build and drive.

I mean, just look at your car. If the steering wheel were in the middle, sure, it might feel sportier, but it wouldn’t be practical for daily use. Developing a center-drive car is also more expensive since it requires specialized engineering, manufacturing, and custom components. Exotic carmakers usually focus on performance and luxury, and honestly, both are easier to achieve with a traditional layout.

And then there’s safety. With center steering, you don’t have the same airbag protection from the driver or passenger sides. If there’s a crash, the impact is coming straight for you — not ideal. So yeah, while center-drive cars might seem cool at first, they’re not really great for everyday driving. They’re just not practical or safe enough.

Steering to the left or right is safer since the impact isn’t aimed directly at you, and the airbag can actually do its job. Even McLaren seems to think the F1 was a one-off — it was cool and worked well, but they never made another car with a center steering wheel. As far as I know, they still haven’t.

They probably figured it wasn’t a great idea for an everyday car. Passengers (if there are any) would feel weird with the driver sitting smack in the middle, and squeezing everyone into the center just doesn’t sound convincing — especially at high speeds. It makes sense for a race car, but for a mass-produced vehicle? Kind of meh. McLaren seems to get that, and honestly, most people probably wouldn’t want to drive like that every day anyway. We’re used to how things are, and there’s no real reason to reinvent the wheel when the current setup works just fine.

When it comes to the idea, it’s actually pretty cool—McLaren basically gives you that racing feeling straight away, and you can tell the moment you get in. Sitting in the middle just seems like the easiest way to control a car, especially when you’re going fast. I mean, just look at an F1 car—it’s built for high speeds and puts you in the perfect spot to command the vehicle. I think that’s partly because the steering wheel is dead center, so you always know exactly where the car is and it’s easier to steer.

But making that setup more common? That’s a tough one, especially for manufacturers. They’d need to help consumers get used to it, and people might not be too quick to change what they already know. For most cars, the usual design works fine, so there might not be much pressure to switch things up. Maybe other manufacturers have already figured that out and just decided the traditional layout is good enough—no need to mess with it or redesign everything.

For regular driving, the usual left- or right-hand layout has been around forever and does the job. There’s really no need to bring back the center steering wheel.

Plus, maybe McLaren kind of “owns” that idea now. Other manufacturers might not want to copy it — or maybe there's just no real demand. If people actually wanted center-steering cars, some other brand would've jumped on it by now. Surely McLaren has thought about it; it's an out-of-the-box idea, and they will do many things so that others don't copy it; that's why not many other manufacturers do so.