Custom Ferrari 488 Wheel Replica by TURN RACING

We were searching for a GT-style steering wheel for quite some time. There are hundreds of steering wheels available for racing simulators, but we still could not find one checking all our boxes.

We were looking for:

  • GT style open steering wheel (not round, or D-shaped)
  • aprox. 30 cm in width (most of the available ones are formula style steering wheels featuring ~28cm)
  • featuring a Fanatec-style 7-way funky switch. It’s a small joystick like switch providing left, right, up down, rotary increase, rotary decrease and a push button in one control unit.
  • massive, high built quality withstanding DD-forces without any flexing or squeaking
  • optional: Ferrari 488 replica as we drive the Ferrari most of all cars

Doesn’t seem to be too hard, but still it’s basically impossible to find a wheel offering all of the above. We found two producers of Ferrari steering wheel replicas and after some negotiation Zach with TURN RACING was prepared to take on the challenge and build us a steering wheel featuring everything of the above list.

It took some time and discussions, but we finally received in the beginning of 2020 our custom made Ferrari 488 sterring wheel replica! It features a thick carbon front plate and a massive black aluminium back casing, 2 rotary encoders, 11 buttons, 2x 2-way switches and our 7-way funky switch as well as two very comfortable, ergonomic thick rubber grips. It has a 50mm 3x screw mounting point.

Some people might consider the rubber grips a no-go for a high-end custom steering wheel. Some time ago I thought so too and I was quite dissapointed by the rubber grips of the Fanatec McLaren steering wheel replica. But ok, that one is a ~170,- EUR wheel. And also, in many race cars the original wheels actually have rubber grips. After having used the Fanatec McLaren wheel as main steeering wheel for almost a year, I completely changed my mind regarding rubber grips. No matter which steeering wheel we use racing gloves anyway, so the feel is not an issue. And actually, using racing gloves, there is better grip and feel with rubber grips than with Alcantara/leather rims. So by now I got very used to rubber grips and the shape of the grips on the Ferrari wheel is outstanding! (for my hands..) The only downside was and is some smell coming from the rubber grips of the wheel. Also the push forces of the buttons are a bit on the light side and the funky switch is not as precise as the Fanatec ones.

But built quality is outstanding, there is no flex, movement or sqeaking sound whatsoever, the size and shape is great and after some custom labeling, it looks fantastic and became our default TANGO RACING SIMULATOR steering wheel.

Big thank you to Zach from TURN RACING to make this possible!

UPDATE 2021-12-30:

Zach is not offering this steering wheel for sale any more as far as I am aware of. I therefore removed a link which did not work anymore.

UPDATE 2020-03-23:
I just learned about the correct width of the original Ferrari GT steering wheel. It is 31,5 cm and therefore 2 cm wider than this wheel. For me personally this is sadly quite an issue. I specifically was looking for a steeering wheel of the size like the Fanatec McLaren replica as I expected those kind of steering wheels to have more or less that size and width. Sadly I did not have the original size confirmed, also back then I did not know about the actual size of an original Ferrari wheel, but my feeling got confirmed and it is considerable larger. I would not have gone for a smaller wheel if I’d had known that beforehand. So if you are looking for a perfect replica featuring the correct size,  please mind that this wheel is 2 cm smaller!