The Wheel

You’d swear Christmas came in October, as I rushed home with my newest acquisition. I was almost giddy as I pulled into the driveway, grabbed my new toy, and headed for the garage. Pulling the cover off of my slowly reemerging racecar, I clambered into the bucket seat (Whoa! Still not bolted down!) and, with a long-anticipated wave of satisfaction, slowly slipped my new steering wheel and freshly machined adapter hub onto the steering column. For the first time in four long years of battered fingers, inhaled bondo dust, and diminishing checking accounts…I think I can see the light of day.

Perhaps it’s my own strange affliction, but to my thinking, there is no other single piece of equipment that more encapsulates the soul and spirit of any given automobile than its steering wheel. In more airy, metaphysical terms, it is the nexis where man and machine meet and, in the case of our vintage machines, often bears the worn patina of a lifetime of human contact.