I’ve been contacted by another E30 M3 owner in Scotland, Alisdair Reid. He questioned both the authenticity, and my opinion of my car’s steering wheel, and went on to offer me his car’s old wheel.

Having never been one to look a gift house in the mouth(!), I’ve gratefully accepted his offer; the wheel arrived promptly and was installed tonight.

My only misgivings at the moment are that the new wheel is fractionally larger and thinner than the outgoing one, and ideally I’d have a smaller and chunkier wheel. The picture below shows the old wheel upside down on top of the new wheel – there’s not much in it.

That said, the new wheel certainly looks more authentic, and gives the car more of a ‘brochure’ appearance with its ‘M’ strips and horn push buttons.

Here’s what the car looked like earlier today:

And this is what it looks like now.

I’m pleased to have the car looking that little bit more original, so repeated thanks to Alisdair, who wouldn’t even accept a contribution towards postage.

During the fitting, I of course omitted to note the exact orientation of the old wheel as I took it off, so there was much driving around combined with trial and error refitting of the wheel to get it back on straight. I enjoyed the drive this evening, but the exhaust really will need some attention very soon. I’m away rally navigating again this weekend – I’ll resume the exhaust project next week.