Bespoke Black OEM-Style Wooden Shift Knob

I’ve never been at all impressed by the quality or functionality of the 308’s OEM shift knob:

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It is made of a seemingly cheap hard plastic, it is too small for my taste, and the indented numerals on the top collect dirt and are hard to keep clean.

So, like perhaps many of you, I located an aluminum aftermarket one which is of the general style used for the F355 and later models:

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This solved the plastic problem, and the larger than OEM diameter felt better to me. But the indented shift pattern and numerals still collected dirt, and attempts to highlight these lines / numbers with black paint never held up well for me – the black paint easily was rubbed away. Plus, when the car is parked in the sun for a while, the aluminum knob gets really hot – so much so that holding it in the palm of your hand is nearly impossible.

Lamenting all of the above to a buddy of mine who dabbles in wooden things, he thought that he could do better.

And he has.

Behold:

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The knob is made of black ebony wood, which hardly looks like wood at all. There’s barely any wood grain visible. The slightly larger diameter feels “just right” to me. The 3-D printed shift numeral insert at top features engraved numerals which he filled in with white epoxy before the final finish - so since it is smooth, there’s no place for dirt to collect (and it’ll never rub off). The black finish mimics the OEM black plastic knob style far better than the aftermarket aluminum one. And finally, the wood construction means that it will no longer become hot in the sun.

All in all, I really like it.

While my buddy fiddles with wood only as a casual hobby, he did indicate that since the knob was fun to make, he’d be willing to make a few more of them for other folks. If this might be of interest to anyone, just PM me and I’ll give you his contact info and you two can take it from there.

What do you think?

Cheers - DM

 

PM sent - DM

 

For those of you who dabble with wood projects, my buddy has posted this pictorial showing how he makes these knobs:

Ferrari shift knob | projectboxster (wixsite.com)

 

PM sent! - DM

 

Done! - DM