Less than 50 yards from our offices. (UPDATE II: Model T ...soybean, wallnut and shell)

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The PreWarCar offices are located in a basic suburban surrounding where you would hardly expect to find any prewar stuff. Last Thursday however a nearby homebased scrapper (scrap copper is now doing close to 5 euro the kilo!) handed over something that he thought we would like. Amazing to find a Model T (?) steering wheel just round the corner between nothing more than 'dead' washing machines and rusty garden tools. The size of the wheel is 395 millimeter and the diameter of the central hole is about 19 mm. What's bothering us is the fact that so far we have only seen massive spokes on Model T steering wheels while this one is a pressed steel specimen. Who can enlighten us? [email protected]
UPDATE by Eric and Chris Edwards (Edwards Antique Automobiles Int'l.): Over the years in our many early auto restorations===which number in the hundreds----about 200 have been Model T Fords---we have seen the later years cars,primarily from late 1925 thru 1927 utilizing the stamped steel steering spiders in combination with the molded composition steering wheel, made of a combination of what was soybean, walnut shell and what seemed to be a rubber vulcanized mix of all the previous mentioned materials. It was durable and moldable too. Unless really abused, it survived well, in fact much better that the plastic molded wheels that were used from the thirties and up. Those all seem to need restoration."
UPDATEs came in from John McKiernan, Bob Swanson and Bas de Voogd. Aside from the facts that it is Model T and that we show the steering wheel upside down (in order to show how it is made) John adds: "Pressed steel spokes introduced in 1920 and used until end (1927). In 1925 outside diameter of wheel changed from 16" to 17"."

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