If you’ve ever been somewhere with a Caterham or Ariel driver, you’ll be aware they have to remove their steering wheel and carry it everywhere with them. The downside of having a car without proper doors or windows…

Well, in the future that’s going to be all of us, according to Jaguar. It has revealed this, a wheel it’s calling ‘Sayer’. The idea is that we don’t own cars in the future, merely the wheel we attach to the ones we borrow.

“This steering wheel concept lives in your home and becomes your trusted companion,” says Jag. Will it make you a cup of tea? Put on Die Hard and order a pizza when you get home late? Um, probably not.

But it is a voice-activated, artificially intelligent wheel that can carry out ‘hundreds of tasks’. Only one of which appears to be ‘steering a car’. And given that car will likely be autonomous, it’s barely relevant anyway.

Jag’s vision of the future is that you’ll be sat with Sayer at home – nice and close on the settee, given what a trusted companion it is – and you’ll use the wheel to order a car when you need one.

A bit like a taxi, then, only you’ll sit in the front and there’ll be no idle chit-chat to have to make. You’ll attach Sayer to the car that arrives, which can then drive itself, but peel off to a nice road if it thinks you’ll enjoy driving yourself.

Why ‘Sayer’? It’s named after Malcolm Sayer, who worked at Jag in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. He designed the C-, D- and E-Types as well as the stunning XJ13 racer.

His modern-day, wheel-shaped form won’t be with us until around 2040 though. It’ll appear attached to something called Jaguar Future-Type, which isn’t immediately described as a car, but as a concept that will ‘explore mobility’. Intrigued?