Well, one of my least favorite parts of any 67 FoMoCo car has to be the “flower pot” steering wheel center. This had to have been an afterthought for the new regulations that were being imposed year after year.
So I’ve been working on an idea of making a replacement for the “flower pot” for over a year. I initially designed a center and 3D printed it. I used the steel mounting feature from an old “flower pot” with a new “Cougar” center piece.
I drove this way for a while. I liked it better than the “flower pot” even though the 3D printed version wasn’t perfectly smooth or polished. For car shows, it was easy enough to twist it off and put the “flower pot” back on.
So… I finally got some 4" ID aluminum bar stock and some new cutter inserts for the old South Bend lathe to make a nice one.
I left the front most face with a machined look to mimic the 65-66 Mustang center. I’m pretty happy with how it came out and love looking at my steering wheel now. If only I could get one of those new instrument bezels…
Anyway, a question I have for you all is, would there any interest in producing these for Cougar/Mustangs?
I haven’t sent it out for quotes yet. But looking at what is out there for custom steering wheels, I would think it would fall between $50-$100. Making it out of aluminum would mean it wouldn’t require chroming. I have some thoughts on how to improve it to bring the machining costs down.
Looks like really good work and looks like it belongs there. My only critique would be to make it a little shorter still, but all else looks awesome. I don’t have a 67, but would definitely buy something like that at $100 all day long to keep the stock wheel etc.
You might look at online places like emachineshop.com to see what using different materials and making different amounts would cost, they give you a instant quote in their free software with suggestions to make it better/cheaper. I have used them for small batches of parts and it always goes well and costs less than anything I could get done locally. Unless you are planning on machining them yourself. Also if you end up not selling them I would love to get the stl file to print one for my 67, been planning on printing one at some point but haven’t got around to designing it yet.