Trevor Jordan says:
> There were definitely rubber grips on at least some late model US
> TR6s. I have two TR6 steering wheels, a 74 and a 76, both from US
> models and they both have/had injection moulded rubber grips. The 74
> is still on my car and very obviously rubber from the pieces that
> have been chipped away. The 76 was gift from a list member and I cut
> the badly deteriorated rubber grip from it myself. It has since been
> remoulded and leather trimmed (but not yet fitted to the car).
>
> There may have been leather trimmed wheels fitted to some cars, but
> there were definitely rubber ones as well. Perhaps someone can tell
> us when and why the change occurred.
Could it be that there is a hard rubber *under* the thin leather cover, and
that if this leather comes off, the wheel looks as if it had always had a
rubber rim? I haven't seen the core of the rim---which I nominally
described as a "foam core". That was just a guess. I've never seen the
actual material of the core. Is it black rubber? If so, that may explain
why people have these "rubber-rimmed" steering wheels! I'm just
speculating. But I've certainly found enough sources that say they're
leather. (My original '72 wheel is leather. My junk-yard late-model 14.5 "
wheel is leather. Every wheel I've seen appears to be leather. Books say
they're leather. Catalogs refer to them as leather. Everyone I've spoken
to in person says they're leather.)
Phil Haldeman
haldeman@accessone.com
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