Original finish on Petri/CSL steering wheel?

[bert35csi]

I have both the 380mm and 400mm Petri steering wheels, both of which were acquired last year after a long exhaustive search of these super rare and super pricey wheels.

Here is my question: What was the original finish on these wheels? The 380mm unit has a bare metal semi polished finish which looks great. The 400mm version has a subtle silver paint finish on the face side only which I think is the original finish.

As luck would have it, both wheels came with new professionally sewn leather, exactly like the original stitching style, thus saving me the expense of having to recovering them myself. As I understand, the 400mm wheel only came with a rubberized grip. Is this a fact?

TIA,
Bert
72 3.5 CSi
88 M6

 

[dtortoise8]

It is my understanding that leather was only offered on CSLs and the rest of the wheels were foam. My 400mm wheel didn't have a painted face.

 

[bert35csi]

According the the original orange parts catalog, the 380mm wheel was labeled as (lederlenkrad) 'leather steering wheel' and the 400mm was labeled as (sportlenkrad) 'sport steering wheel'. My leather recovered 400mm wheel still retains the original rubbery feel due to it's soft foam/rubber core whereas the 380mm wheel has the traditional rigid feel to its grip.

Bert