How old is my Momo steering wheel?
Decifer the Momo production years & stampings
At the weekend I was finally able to spend more time at the garage. I constantly plan to clean up and catalog what I’ve got. At least start with it, but it didn’t work out – again. The first box I opened was full of steering wheels and I had to see what I got there.
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Very early Momo steering wheels and more recent ones. It reminded me that people have repeatedly wondered what the sometimes cryptic engravings on the Momo steering wheels mean (if at all) or what years the steering wheels are coming from, where no production years have been engraved.
Well, most interestingly, there is no official information about this. And since the company Momo has gone through several hands, there is also no sufficient information there. All there is is little hints here and there, advertisements that reveal something, posters of car races.
MOD. DEP. NO. 12707 steering wheels
At the very beginning, we speak of the years 1964 and 1965, even before the official founding of Momo (as a short form of Moretti Monza), the steering wheels had engravings on two of the spokes on the back. On the left spoke “HAND MADE IN ITALY”, on the right spoke “MOD. DEPARTMENT 12707” has been engraved. 12707 was a patent that Moretti had filed. There are no further records. However, in addition to this 12707 variant, there are at least two other variants out there.
Hand Made in Italy
Mod. Dep. N° 12707
12707 MOMO MADE IN ITALY, MOMO & PAT. MOMO ITALY steering wheels
In 1966, steering wheels had the word Momo on them for the first time. In the period 1966 to 1967, however, there were three variants of stampings on the back. First one showed “12707 MOMO Made in Italy”, second was “MOMO”, third one was “PAT. MOMO ITALY “. Although all of these stampings are from these period, it is not clear when exactly Momo used which one for which wheel.
12707 MOMO Made in Italy stamping 1966-1967
PAT. MOMO ITALY stamping 1966-1967
MOMO stamping 1966-1967
Stacked MOMO logo steering wheels
From 1968 to 1973, the well-known “stacked” Momo logo made it onto the wheels, the first real designed logo and the first horn buttons from Momo, which also showed the stacked logo, have been introduced. Those are much sought after today by collectors. This was also the last phase in the history of Momo that the Momo engraving was found on the back. But that doesn’t mean automatically that your wheel has to be from that phase. Momo changed the generations of the Momo Prototipo between those stamps on the back, means, a second-generation Momo Prototipo with a stacked Logo on the back was made between 1972 and 1973.
stacked MOMO stamping 1968-1973
stacked MOMO stamping 1968-1973
Made in Italy & Made in Italy M20340 steering wheels
In 1974, the steering wheels showed the Momo stamping on the center spoke (if any) at the bottom (with a few exceptions and deviations, which, however, have no particular significance). In this phase, which lasted from 1974 to early 1977, but most of the time referred to as 1974-1976, there were again – two versions. For the first part of that period, the steering wheels came with the “MADE IN ITALY” only. The later ones of the above mentioned period had “MADE IN ITALY” and underneath again a mystic number – “M20340”. Again, a number for a patent specification.
MADE IN ITALY, made 1974-1976
MADE IN ITALY, M20340, made 1974-1976
Momo steering wheels for sale
Momo steering wheels with date code
As of early 1977, Momo stamped the corresponding production month and the production year under “Made in Italy” in the format “m-yy”, ie month (without leading zero) and year (two digits) on the back of the center spoke.
MADE IN ITALY, 6-79
MADE IN ITALY, 2-80
As previously stated, after Momo has gone through several hands, the stamping slightly changed to this day as well as the typo. And they’ve added the leading zero to the month (mm-yy).
Momo logo and production year stampings
- 1964-1965: HAND MADE IN ITALY (left spoke) + MOD. DEPARTMENT 12707 (right spoke)
- 1966-1967: 12707 MOMO MADE IN ITALY & MOMO & PAT. MOMO ITALY
- 1968-1973: “stacked” MOMO
- 1974-1976 (Mid-1977): MADE IN ITALY & MADE IN ITALY M20340
- Mid-1977-onwards: MADE IN ITALY, m-yy
