We all had them. Never heard them called a brodie knob though. Where did that come from?
I put one on my dad's car, didn't have power steering.
As far as "Brodie Knob" goes: There's a story that goes around that back in the day, in Bakersfield, CA a bunch of teenagers left a Buck Owen's tavern appearance where he introduced the song, "I've got a tiger by the tail." Outside they saw a man hollering and rolling in the dirt. Some say he was thrown out for trying to lick a waitress's arm while Buck was singing. Brodie, in his 40's, and a former minor league catcher, brushed himself off outside the tavern and dance hall. He began hollering and ranting.
Bob "Bronco" Brodie bragged about how he could drive full speed towards the railroad tracks, in his '51 Ford business coupe, spin his "suicide knob" while grabbing the hand brake and do a 180 across two tracks while narrowly missing the Union Pacific train that roared through town at 75mph, pulling 87 loaded box cars around midnight. Bronco said, "Now that's whatcha call
a tiger by the tail." By then a crowd had gathered and the bets went down.
Two weeks later kids at school started selling "Brodie Knobs" tailored after the knob that they found in the driveway of a Taco Bell with a tooth imbeded in the clear plastic, 1 and a quarter miles from the collision. Parents wouldn't let the kids say, "suicide knob" not wanting Bob "Bronco" Brodie's three X wives any undue embarrassment.
After that the Knobs were called "Brodie Knobs" and the expression
he got Brodie'd became popular and eventually spread up the hill and into the greater Los Angeles Basin.
Today a real Brodie Knob with a tooth embedded in clear plastic is worth the price of a Henry J.