TV star shares his love of classic steering wheels

By Charlie Calderwood

| 2 Dec 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Also in my garage: steering wheels

“It’s the cheapest mod you can do that makes the car feel materially different,” says presenter Paul Cowland as he pulls steering wheel after steering wheel from a metal cupboard.

He has more than 50 cars in his collection, but, including those already in the cars he owns, his steering-wheel assortment numbers at least twice that.

Growing up reading car magazines stuffed with adverts for parts and accessories, and later working in PR for the same firms, Paul is as much an enthusiast for the aftermarket scene as for classic cars: laminated catalogues and advertisements sit in binders in his office.

It started with the Volkswagen Beetles Paul struggled to fit into due to their large helms jostling for space with his legs, so swapping the factory wheel for a smaller, sportier item became his go-to.

There are 50-plus classic cars in Paul Cowland’s collection

“It’s the control surface you spend the most of your time touching,” he says. “A thicker, smaller wheel can transform the character of the car.”

Paul has since replaced, or has plans to replace, the wheel of every car in his collection – up to the airbag era.

It’s all about finding the right wheel to suit a given car for Paul, an aficionado of the scene who can tell not only a Momo from a Nardi, but also a Springalex from a Richbrook.

Sometimes that just means swapping the standard part for a factory upgrade, such as the Alpine wheel in his Renault 5 TS, but for aftermarket options it rests on a combination of style, period and colour.

A wood-rimmed Nardi awaits fitment to Paul’s Peugeot 505 estate, with its dark-green paint and brown interior.

Paul tracked down a rare Moto-Lita wheel for his Saab 99 (middle)

As with many of the steering wheels in Paul’s collection, finding the appropriate boss is as much part of the hunt as sourcing the wheel itself.

Values range wildly. A new-old-stock Momo item that was a rare option on 1983 Subarus and never offered in the UK cost Paul £400 – when fitted to the Subaru Leone it is slated for, it will represent a quarter of the entire value of the car.

“Lots of them come from eBay or Facebook Marketplace, but there have been a couple of absolute birthdays at places such as the Beaulieu autojumble,” says Paul.

“A brand-new, mint-in-box Hella wheel with the Audi Sport logo on it, for 50 quid. That’s so rare.”

It’s all about having an eye and being able to spot the pieces that only real nerds recognise.

Paul Cowland’s steering-wheel obsession began when he couldn’t fit in his VW Beetle – and now he’s hooked on the aftermarket scene

A new-old-stock, boxed Raid wheel is one of the prizes of Paul’s collection.

Identical to that used in contemporary Lamborghinis, with the exception of a small stamped logo, the wheel was picked up for £150, when true Lamborghini items sell for thousands in the same condition.

“My favourite steering wheel is in my white Saab 99, because of its story,” confirms Paul.

The firm offered an official Moto-Lita option for a time, with a small ‘Saab’ script punched on one of the spokes, but he was unable to find one in decent condition.

Eventually, Paul called the Moto-Lita factory and asked the team to make the closest thing it could: “They rang me up half an hour later and said, ‘You won’t believe this, I’ve just gone in the stores and found a Saab blank. Do you want it?’ I was like, ‘Yes, I do!’”

Many of Paul’s wheels will never find their way into a car.

He’s mooting a wall-mounted display of the more unusual items, such as his Springalex with square holes in its spokes, or the translucent, silicone-rimmed Richbrook “from the peak of the Max Power era”.

He adds: “Of course, there’s a joy in collecting them for their own sake. By design they are nice items to look at, and tactile things to hold.”

Images: Max Edleston

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