VOLVO R SPORT STEERING WHEEL BY MOMO
Mads van Appeldoorn
April 7, 2021
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A true classic Momo steering wheel
As mentioned a few times already in the past, Momo manufactured not only their own steering wheels for retail purposes, they also produced special steering wheels for a number of car brands and coach builders alike. There were a couple of those, Ferrari of course, Abarth, Lotus, Alpina, Saab and also Volvo.
Momo used their designs again and again
Not all of those steering wheels that Momo produced for car brands were special made designs and productions. The Momo company took quite a number of wheel designs that they already had in their product line, tweaked them a little, added some features and sold those models to the respective car brands. Some of these were even used multiple times. The ad on top and below shows two of the wheels that were made for the Volvo R Sport division. The left one in the red box is also known as the Momo Alpina wheel and the right design has been used for a number of Momo steering wheels, the Momo Jacky Ickx steering wheel, the Momo Gilles Villeneuve, the Momo 5R, the famous Ferrari Dino steering wheel and a few more.
Volvo Momo steering wheel ad with two Volvo R Sport designs
Volvo R Sport horn button & part number engraved
Volvo steering wheels made by Momo
Momo had a number of things they changed or adjusted to give a steering wheel an individual look. We all know the Momo signature series where Momo added a signature of a race car driver to the wheel, sometimes they’ve added finger grips on the back, added a dedicated horn pad, offered slightly different sizes in terms of diameter, a special horn button or added some decals to the steering wheels as you can see above.
The Volvo steering wheels, not all of them were made for the Volvo R Sport series, are a good example for the variety of alterations. To make that even more clear, Momo produced two ranges of steering wheels for Volvo. One, for the Volvo R Sport division and two, for Volvo in general. While the R Sport Steering Wheels had a part number engraved, sometimes on the center spoke, sometimes on the left spoke of the steering wheel, the non-R wheels had Volvo in their very own logo design stamped on the center spoke, pictured below on the right.
A few of those steering wheels came with a horn pad, I remember seeing two slightly different horn pads (besides the Alpina Style steering wheel with the respective horn pad of course), some had the Volvo R logo painted on the right spoke, a few didn’t. And the part numbers were different as well, based on my records I’ve seen at least 4 different part numbers engraved, either on the left or the center spoke. All Volvo steering wheels, again, based on my knowledge, came in 350mm diameter.
What’s interesting, even though Volvo and Saab were not affiliated with each other, other than they were both swedish, both car brands had their part numbers engraved on the Momo wheels that have been made by Momo exclusively. Saab on the other hand received steering wheels from Momo in other sizes, 370mm, 380mm and even 390mm.
However, if you find a decent example of those, hold on to it! They are quite rare, production numbers were not as big as – for example the Momo signature series steering wheels.
classic Momo steering wheel design for Volvo R Sport
Volvo engraving for their classic line
