HOW TO IDENTIFY A FAKE MOMO STEERING WHEEL?
Mads van Appeldoorn
October 24, 2024
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How to spot a fake Momo steering wheel
Almost every day I get messages where people ask me whether a Momo steering wheel they’ve seen or even bought is fake or not. When curious or in doubt, most of the time you are right: FAKE. Some fakes are better than others, some manufacturers even took the extra mile to fake an “original” box and the respective horn button. Looks like Momo but isn’t. I’ll show you some examples and give you some ideas on how to spot a fake Momo steering wheel, especially what details to check.
A brand new Momo steering wheel, let’s say a Momo Prototipo costs around $250 these days. Not too much but what if you could save $50 or more? Would you take it? Most likely, yes. There are so many places where you find those fake Momo steering wheels, the obvious marketplaces, but also shops that look like any other car parts online store. Watch out! Yes, you might save a few bucks – but ever thought about safety? Momo did a lot of research over the years that went into production, the right material which in case of an accident acts like it should. But how about those fake wheels? Well, I didn’t do crash testing but I am pretty sure the materials are not the same and so isn’t their behaviour in that kind of situation.
Since vintage Momo steering wheels became more and more valuable and though expensive, those “companies” not only fake new Momo steering wheel models, they even try to fake vintage models. I have seen fake Momo Monza steering wheel, Ferrari Dino steering wheels and vintage versions of the Momo Prototipo. A lot of those. And as I said, some fake copies are better than others. Check out the images, click to enlarge. See the difference?
original genuine Momo Prototipo
fake Momo Prototipo
You see the difference? Sometimes it’s hard to tell, especially if the quality of the images is not that great. Look at the logo, the stitching, the seam on the bottom and the leather.
What details to check when in doubt of the originality?
To make it short – surface of the materials used, typo of the logos and the stitching. One advice I can give upfront – when in doubt, compare the one you found with images on my site. The ones here are a 100% original Momo steering wheels.
The surface of the aluminium is something that can easily be spotted on a fake Momo steering wheel. The granularity is different and especially the vintage Momo steering wheels have some sort of decor pattern on the surface. Also check the edges of the holes, early ones are rounded off, new ones are sharp. The leather of vintage Momo steering wheels is completely different compared to the fake ones. All smooth compared to the current, more common grainy type of leather.
Another great example of a fake Momo
Missing a hole on the center spoke
wrong date format, size, font
stitching on the back of the thumb pad – just wrong
Those four images are all from the same fake Momo steering wheel. A great example of – everything is so wrong here, easy to spot.
Start with comparing the logos. Most of the time you can spot it right away. Different (and wrong) typography used for the logo silkscreen printing but also a wrong format together with a wrong typography on the back.
Some even have an all wrong stitching or, to make matters even worse, have thumb pads where there should be none or the other way around. And as I said, compare images with other sources. So you can make sure, you don’t buy any of these fakes. Of course, my experience helps me a lot. Might have had over 1000 Momo steering wheels in my hand, still have a few hundreds and still trying to downsize my collection. Hope those example images help. If you are still not sure after comparing images, get in touch!
wrong Prototipo typography, font variant and letter spacing
wrong Monza font
wrong double layer seam at the bottom
“new” fake Dino with stacked logo and sharp hole edges
“interesting” font
rear markings never looked like that
stacked logo in front + second-generation prototipo Logo
a lot on the front, nothing on the back
Most of the time we’re talking about fake Momo Prototipos. It’s one of the steering wheels people have the most desire in. So also consider having a look at all the pictures in the legendary Momo Prototipo article.
And when in doubt whether the steering wheel you want to buy is legit or not, please contact me and send pictures. In most cases, it will safe you hundreds of Dollars and I am genuinly happy to help.
