'56 CHEVY STEERING WHEEL (ZRODZ AND CUSTOMS)
Client:
ZRodz and Customs
Date:
Early 2022-present (ongoing)
Designer(s)
Shane Rienks
Eric Brockmeyer
What kind of steering wheel does a 3/4-million-dollar, 17-year-long-project, timeless, hand-built car by ZRodz and Customs deserve?
Of course it deserves a steering wheel just as incredible as the car itself. I was asked to take Eric Brockmeyer's artistic design rendering and turn it into reality - from 3D modeling to developing the ergonomics, and working with FFC's machinist to make this machinable. While I stayed true to most of his original concept (shown in the below gallery alongside my 3D model), I made a few changes to better fit the rest of the interior design (not shown) and the retro-modern timeless European aesthetic
we have for the interior of this car.
The full car ('56 Chevy Bel-Air), along with several other parts I've designed and helped build for it, is shown in the main projects gallery.
What we ended up with is a very unique, polished billet aluminum wheel that has over 100 hours of CAD modeling, engineering, and ergonomics R&D time in it.
It features heavily polished ebony wood pieces that tie in with the same wooden trim throughout the rest of the interior design. It also features visually subtle, yet physically pronounced, "notches" for the driver's fingers to better grip the wheel and get steering feedback. I worked closely with Ryan Nielsen, the highly talented CNC machinist who was initially tasked with CNC machining this, to figure out how to make all of the very narrow, deep passages and tight-tolerances a reality - all without any fasteners (screws) exposed on the front.
We decided to split the main body, with 3 pairs of spokes, into 3 main pieces. These 3 pieces slide into the center black "hub" that also houses the horn button, which itself will be a piece of art. There is a tiny emblem - a modernized take on the original '56 Chevy emblem - with some features as small as 5-thousandths-of-an-inch.
This emblem will be inset in a CNC machined and polished acrylic cover, giving it a sense of depth and three-dimensionality - a modern homage to the highly-dimensional horn emblems of over 50 years ago.