Does anyone know where this came from?

It's a horn ring with a slick Olde English F in the center. The important part is that the center of the ring opens up into a compartment with a make-up mirror and lamp. At one time it was padded with that flocking that used to get sprayed onto things in the 50s. It was intended as a make-up compartment but there are all kinds of alternate uses.

Does anyone know where this horn ring might have come from? The F style is nothing I can place and I don't know of any company that marketed cars to women so heavily as to include a make-up mirror in the steering wheel.

 

I can't figure out why the photos didn't come up--it makes no sense without them.... Okay, here we go.

 

Could it be a Ford or Frazer accessory? Doesn't look like either of their logos. Maybe a monogram of the owner's initial?

In the forties and early fifties car companies sold many accessories for their cars. The dealers had a special display case. By the late fifties this practice was fading out as most new options like V8, auto trans, power windows etc had to be installed at the factory.

So, it may be a factory optional accessory from the forties or fifties. Is there any part number or symbol on the back?

 

Hmm, probably something high end. Maybe a car designed by Pinanfarina?

 

1955 and 56 Dodge offered "The car for her majesty, the American Woman" called La Femme. Could that be it?

........................Later.....................

Did a web search, La Femme offered a compact but not in the steering wheel. Besides the F was shaped different.

 

While cool, its the idea of using while driving with drum brakes that makes me shiver.

 

Fiat?

 

Frontenac

Canadian model

 

You could keep your weed in it.

 

Thats what I was thinking...only a chick would drive one of those.



Unless it was a gasser

 

I'd guess Frazer

 

Franklin?? The era script looks art deco'ish. They were high end.
Wouldnt want Madame' looking less than stellar at the time of the wreck, now would we?

 

I think it's cool. Make a nice wall hanger.

 

The position of the ring and the diameter of the center make it look like it could fit on a '49 Ford wheel, but it would have had to have been an aftermarket accessory from Yankee or some similar place, with stylized F to avoid a trademark.

It's damn cool wherever it came from, and I can honestly say I've never seen another one.

 

No worse than texting on an f-ing cell phone.....

 

It's not Ford, of course, and the Frazer logo is completely different. I can't find any Fiat lettering that's even close. I'm inclined to think it came from a super high-end luxury custom coach builder, like Deitrich (spelling?)

I never considered Frontenac or Franklin, figuring that their years of production were too early for that kind of layered-up horn ring and steering column. I'll have to check into that.

One problem standing in the way of all this automotive detective work is that the way this thing is built, the maker could have put any plastic panel where the F is--meaning that it could have been tailored for a family named Finnegan instead of a manufacturer.

And that leaves us a step before one. By the way, I sent pix to Skip Marketti at the Nethercutt Collection. He's Chief Curator out there at the museum in Sylmar, which is a place you definitely ought to see when you're in So Cal. They have a series of cabinets that adds up to about a block long, completely filled with hood ornaments. That alone is worth the trip. Skip has never seen a horn ring like this either.

 

Yankee or the like will usually have their name on it someplace. I suspect it's aftermarket also, if you can scare up some early JC Whitney catalogs or maybe some of the old magazines like Popular Science and the like you might hit on an ad for one.

Other than that it's googling up pix of steering wheels to see if it might fit.

To me the shape and design imply 1946-1957 or so. After that wheels tended to have a dish to them and before that you didn't see as many horn rings.