It's been awhile. I haven't been working on the car at all, just driving it, because I've been focusing on spending time with the family and enjoying the summer, as well as working on some higher priority projects. But I did have some time today after getting something in the mail.
Previously I had bought a new Prototipo wheel after they released the 370mm version, but the quality, and most importantly the feel, was really bad. Whatever they covered it with isn't leather, and the seams were really badly done. All in all a very poor product. I tried to rectify it by having the wheel recovered and although that fixed the feel portion, the cover always looked crappy to me and it made the wheel itself much too large.
So I decided to start the hunt for a vintage wheel. Plenty of 370s would pop up but everyone seems to realize they're worth real money now - I saw several for close to $2,000. But I was patient and one finally came up within my price range - in Australia!
It arrived surprisingly quickly.
Condition is excellent, no tears, a few small imperfections. And the feel is noticeably superior. Notice the vintage screened logo without the border.
Date stamp 12/77 - so pretty much exactly when my car was made! These two were meant to each other.
The leather feels nicer, perhaps because it spent decades being handled, but the feel is consistent over the entire wheel. So I did some softening and conditioning to help it along a bit more. Feels so good now!
Here's the covered wheel. Looks cheap, but don't ask me what it cost to get covered, you'll choke.
Replaced with the proper vintage wheel, so much better! Thin but not too thin, feels good and smooth. Hard to believe this wheel is 45 years old.