1969 Camaro Rosewood Steering Wheel Research
 

I have an original rosewood steering wheel that has a letter code molded into the backside of wheel near bottom spoke .
I ve seen a few others like mine posted as well
My questions are were these early or late production rosewood wheels and why has there not been more research on these.....I would love to know. ...
Would be great research topic
Thanks

There was no 'early production' Rosewood wheel.

The '69 style N34 wheel originally had a Walnut toned rim, same as all 67-68. Sometime between mid-November and early December '68, it was changed to Rosewood.

Years ago, I had an NOS Rosewood wheel and noted minor differences in the molded-in characters compared to a production wheel. Personally, I believe researching insignificant stuff like this is a waste of time.

I was wondering why very few of the original rosewood wheels had the molded in letter and most did not....
I always admire your expertise William

I worked in manufacturing my entire career. A good portion involved rubber and plastic molding. The tooling involved may have had several cavities; there may have been more than one tool involved. Injection molding is abrasive; molds wear and need to be repaired or replaced. There may have been more than one tool shop involved. The differences that resulted from normal manufacturing may have nothing to do with the part itself.

Beyond that, I worked with a Camaro parts business for many years. Thousands of N34 wheels have been retrofitted over 53 years. What was a rare option [2.8%] has become common. Without paperwork, there is no way to know if a car was built with it.

So William I guess the questions I have is did some of the original 1969 camaro rosewoods come with a molded letter molded on back side of the bottom spoke ?
Were the rosewood with letters mostly over the counter ?
Thanks

My recollection is some had molded-in letters, some didn’t. 53 years later, there is no way to figure out what happened.

There are many examples of GMPD service parts that did not exactly match production-line parts.

There used to be a guy who showed up at the spring Springfield ohio swap who used to bring nos rosewoods and walnut wheels. Said he worked at the plant that made the wheels in Dayton. The ones I purchased did not have letters and this was way before the reproductions came out. One other interesting note that like William said, there were multiple injection units at the plant as he would have ones with grain and not much swirling and ones that were smooth with lots of beautiful swirls.

Rosewood wheel
 

What's the value on mint rosewood wheel no cracks or repairs with good coloring ?
Not nos but a good used wheel .
Jim


I'm looking for a wheel to purchase if a member here has a good oem rosewood wheel to sell.

It's been all over the map with regards to prices. I have owned a couple of dead mint Rosewood wheels in recent years and never paid more than $1200 to $1500 for them. Also sold one of them and all I could get for it at the time was $1350 and it was a 9.5 for condition.

Some people think they are worth far more as I have seen people asking between $2700 to as high as $7500 for a NOS wheel in the box, but I have never agreed with those evaluations. Anywhere between $1500 to $1800 should land you a real nice one with no cracks. Just be patient and one will pop up. They always seem to pop up in groves where you will see a bunch of them come at once.

JMO :beers: