Prototype 911 wood steering wheel and end cap

[raspritz]

This photo illustrates two early 911 factory prototype items I recently purchased. The provenance is iron-clad, from a Studio Engineer who worked in the Porsche Styling Department in Zuffenhausen, prior to the move to the Weissach Test Facility. The steering wheel is 42 cm in diameter, probably mahogany with no front inlay band, with steel armature not exposed on the inner rim. It is stamped VDM 53. Placed on the wheel merely for convenience is a centre cap used as a finishing piece on prototype wheels modeled in clay. The centre cap has long prongs on the back to stick into the clay.

Rich Spritz

[LiveFromNY]

That's wild. Thanks for sharing.

[Frank Beck]

Cool.

Now what do you do with it?

Do the long prongs look like this?

[Rennman]

Looks like a Fuchs center cap. Cool wheel.

Don

[Flunder]

Great find. Would a 356C horn button fit the wheel?

[raspritz]

Cool.

Now what do you do with it?

Do the long prongs look like this?

No, the prongs don't look anything like that. Like yours, they are seven pins in a Y configuration, but the pins are long and thin. According to the former designer, they were meant to stick straight into the clay mock-up of the wheel under design. No way could this attach to a real wheel.

[raspritz]

Great find. Would a 356C horn button fit the wheel?

I doubt it. The fittings look typical early 911.

[StephenAcworth]

Will you be sharing some more photos of this fascinating stuff? Thanks for sharing this so far!

[Jim Breazeale]

I doubt it. The fittings look typical early 911.

If the fittings are "early 911" (the fittings for horn buttons were the same from 1960 through 1973), a 356C horn button would certainly fit. We need more pictures of this wheel and the cap. The spokes appear to be steel and much like the normal wheels found in later SWB cars. It seems odd that Porsche would make a wheel from steel and then make them out of aluminum for many documented "prototypes" and also the first run of 911s then revert to steel. Anything is possible, I suppose.

Jim

[911T1971]

There exists a b/w factory picture of a 901 mock-up dashboard/steering wheel.
Its taken in 1963ish and shows already a 5-dial dashboard but having a strange window vent located on left side of the dashboard, which never went into production. Its beleived to be the earliest picture of the final 5 dial dashboard layout, earlier pics all show the 356 inspired 2-dial dashboard as mounted on prototyp 901 T7, 13327 "Barbarossa" and other 901 prototyps. (Those prototyps also used a 356 inspired steering wheel including colored Porsche crest cap)
The photo is published in Brian Longs book, someone pls has access and post it, im out of town.

If the above posted steering wheel associated to a 911 "prototyp" (which would rather be a 1963 production 901 prototyp-there were no 911 prototyp cars) I assume the wheel was used with its clay center and much later a modified Fuchs alu cap was simply added, to maybe complete the look of this souvenir.

How do we know that the (modified) cap was not added later on ?
In any case I agree the materiel mix of wood/steel/alu is odd.
I cant imagine a designer felt a hub cap would also made it on a steering wheel.

(btw Aichele wrote that the 901 interior was planned with no wood on dashboard and no wood for its steering wheel. A factory note by the sales dept. later designed the 901 as a luxury sportscar and they implemented -as on english sportscars of that period- that wood would be added to the interior of the 901.
If you check the interior of the 1962 built T7, there isnt seen a single element of wood.)