period aftermarket steering wheel Options

[wonkipop]

so.......this morning i'm walking past a leyland mini moke "californian" thats in the shop getting some work done. these "california" mokes were made in australia back in the mid 70s to early 80s. both for our domestic market and in one of those rare ventures for australia, also for the USA. a LHD variant was manufactured and exported. reasonably successful for a time i'm told. i sure remember them as a teenager and through my university years. now a rare sight.



i spot this.




and i think........thats awful familiar.

walk over to the 914.


bingo. identical. did the moke have the same aftermerket wheel?
got curious. searched a few moke forums.
got interesting. aftermarket yes. sort of! seems leyland australia had these wheels supplied by a french company - formuling. they were assembly line items for a sport package moke. so fitted from factory. dates on these are approx 79 or 80 on.



had some detail on the moke. no name branding on the wheels at that time. just "made in france" on the back of one of the spokes. went down and checked. sure enough the made in france stamp was there. no other marking.

now. when i bought the 914 back in 89 i remember asking the owner who was the first owner about the wheel. and he said he had it fitted at the dealer because he could not get in the car comfortably with the standard wheel. it was fitted from new at the dealer who was Capitol Porsche Audi in Maryland.

went across to 914 and took a close look at the back of the spokes. instead of "made in france" just has "france" stamped there. no other brand or markings. conclusion = its the real deal and the orig. owners recollection was right.

didn't know much about these wheels. but it seems back in the 70s if accounts on the internet are correct, that these were a bit of a cult item during that era. particularly amongst the VW aircooled crowd in the USA. often fitted to CAL look beetles and dune buggies during that particular decade. (later in the 80s and 90s they became a more widespread item with the crew driving all sorts of euro cars, bmws etc.).

which kind of made sense with the moke. leyland australia were going for that beach/surfer/dune buggy VW fashion look to market to USA youth.
and it kind of makes sense that the old 914s would have got these particular steering wheels as either a dealer install or first owner update/mod in period. the wheel that the aircooled cult crowd "had to have"?

anyway some other cool pics.





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[ConeDodger]

A friend from high school bought the whole mess of them off Catalina Island a few years back. He restores them. I can put you in touch with him if you’d like…