4 Attachment(s)
Factory 380 mm "Thick-Grip" Steering Wheel Dissected
Last week, my buddy Ron Thomas hooked me up with a well worn factory 914-6GT/St/RSR steering wheel - aka thick-grip wheel. It appears that the stitching gave up the ghost many years ago, but otherwise it seems very restorable with a nice treatable patina on the grip.
I thought that this would be a good opportunity to document what goes into one of these wheels. As you can see, it started out as a 914.347.803.10 hard plastic steering wheel. Now typically, this part # would have been a 69-71 wheel, but in this case, the date stamp is 12/72 which would likely make it an RSR or parts dept wheel. (a '72 wheel for a 914 would have had the dished hub and non counter-sunk cancellation screw holes on the rear.)
Wrapped around the standard rim is a layer of black felt material. Atop this is a partial layer of white cotton. Then the wheel was covered with a single layer of leather.
I used to obsess about the baseball stitched spoke pads, but this wheel was "X" stitched all the way, once again proving that there is no definitive answer when it comes to these hand-made parts.
Hope this is of interest to some of the other anoraks out there, :) Oh, and I made sure to photograph it on the red sofa just for Reza and Mark M. :cool: