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| Steeringwheels E Nardi, Les Leston, Sterling Moss. V.W. Derrington and Gian Carlo Carlotti were all well known racing drivers. After their racing carrier they put their names on different accessories with racing touch like gloves, shoes, helmets, steering wheels.... you name it. Many steering wheels with their names attached to it are looking just the same. These guys were not manufacturer of steering wheels. They were asked to put their names on them and some of them were probably made by the same factory who asked this question. Well, nowadays many of those wheels are not originals, they are after market productions and using the racers names as a "Type" of a wooden steering wheel What kind of steering wheels did the Harrington Alpine and Harrington Le Mans car have when they left the factory? For Harrington Alpines a wooden steering wheel was an option and if such was ordered, they got a Carlotti slotted steering wheel maybe also with thumb grips. In October 1961 at the introduction of the Le Mans they replaced the slotted one for a non-slotted type some had also thumb grips. These were put into all Le Mans cars. In some literature the two names Les Leston and Carlotti are put together. The only reason for this was that they looked the same. My original steering wheel had no LL under the Carlotti sticker. Or owners have had problems to find Carlottis and bought LL and put a C sticker on to cover it. Just my thoughts. Stickers are easy to make. If a Carlotti sticker was put above a LL you would feel it through the Cariotti sticker because the LL was engraved. |
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| These kinds of steering wheels can be found
on many other cars too. Aftermarket wheels are also possible
to buy. Look at Mike Lempert home page http://www.pbase.com mdlempert
carloftinos or contact Zan Zanettos, zmzannetos@googlemail.com only originals |
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On the home page for Sabra Sabre cars this was found:
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| Comment Of course not, because it's a Carlotti which used the chequered flag as a logo. I don't quite understand what they have written. |
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For now it's unknown from which time this steering wheel was used. It's a "Les Leston"-wheel. Les Leston the car-racer is told to be the first person that understood that a three-spoked-wheel didn't have to have it's spokes at 120°. As the above design shows this steering wheel allows better visibility as well on the road as on the instruments. With the first (certainly the first Tamworth-) cars the steering wheel had (as is shown in the manual) kind of thumb-rests on the horizontal spokes. It's uncertain when they changed model. Carlotti sticker. On the later kind of wheels you have a LL. Same look of the steering wheel on the Sabra Sabre but 15" and smaller centre hole. Talking about thumb grips and the real original of all originals for Harrington Alpine and Le Mans. The logos on the fender badges are like these with thumb grips. |
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| This was found in an article about Harrington Alpine Stage III and is an option. For Le Mans a none slotted wheel on my office floor. |
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| The boss is different on the HA (Lucas CC5) - Sunbeam logo on hom button. |
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So, talking about original Steering wheels for Harringtons. It is Carlotti in either way, diameter 16", nothing else. Picture below from Sports Car Graphics April -62 shows one of the LM demo cars which was sent to US early-62 and you can see that it has a steering wheel with thumb grips. |
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note. The Harrington Series 'C' and 'D' came with original Alpine II steering wheels. Carlotti was an option just for Harrington Series 'C'. At last. If you don't find your Carlotti steering wheel, you can always do like what this owner did. He made his own wheel and sticker and if you are missing the outer trim and badges, make your own. Also if your interior looks a bit bad, make your own |
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