Thrustmaster Leather 28 GT
Hand-stitched leather hasn’t looked this good since DesperateHousewives
ATTRACTING A MEMBER of the opposite sex into your bedroom can be a tricky business, so the last thing you need is having certain unappealing items left lying around to potentially dampen the mood. Posters of scantily clad celebrities don’t tend to go down well, while the sight of a fake steering wheel clamped in front of your monitor could be seduction suicide.
Fear not though, as this wheel may as well be an aphrodisiac, exuding quality from its hand-stitched leather and 2mmthick brushed-metal center panel. Six buttons and a D-pad provide plenty of control, plus there’s a manettino dial for a taster of what life would be like behind the wheel of a Ferrari 458. Thrustmaster’s dial is more show than go though, with an air of a budget 1990s stereo, rather than Maranello’s finest.
Otherwise, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any quality flaws. Despite weighing just 1kg, the wheel is fitted with substantial 13cm-long metal paddle shifters, so there’s no excuse for missing a gear shift when you need to unleash your inner Dominic Toretto for a fast getaway. The buttons are rated to withstand over 10 million hits, and the 28cm-diameter wheel gets an inner steel hoop for strength and better force feedback transmission.
Trouble is, you can’t just fling this wheel about in mid-air and expect things to happen. You’ll need a T300, T500, or TXseries racing system to use it with, and since these already include a wheel, you’re going to end up with a pair of wheels for the single force feedback unit and pedal set. That’s bad feng shui, and your bank balance isn’t going to be happy either, with compatible setups starting at around $300.
At least you’ll be able to attach and remove your leather-bound beauty in no time, courtesy of Thrustmaster’s Quick Release system, right? Well, if this is the designer’s idea of a quick release, their partner must have a serious problem with RSI. Rather than a simple locking clip mechanism, such as you might find attaching an F1 car’s steering wheel, here you’ll need to tighten a large plastic nut instead. No big deal, if only the nut didn’t nestle in the annoyingly tight gap between the back of the wheel and the motor unit.
HELL FOR LEATHER
But once everything is ready and you can put pedal to metal (well, plastic), it all comes good. Whichever racing system you mount the Leather 28 GT to, TM’s excellent force feedback motor brings it to life. There’s a colossal 1,080-degree max rotation, plus dual belt drive for near-silent force feedback, and contactless magnetic position sensing for max rotation accuracy and increased longevity. The result is superbly strong and communicative feedback, with none of the usual gear grinding that lesser wheels can produce.
Such advanced internals do need to be kept cool by means of a fan, and unfortunately this is far from silent. It’s certainly not going to overshadow your racing, but it’s loud enough to partly undo all the effort that went into making the motor drive so smooth and quiet.
Of course, the TM Leather 28 GT isn’t to blame there, but it’s not off the hook. This is undoubtedly a great wheel, but it’s also essentially the same as what’s included with Thrustmaster’s T300 Ferrari GTE setup, only you get to grip leather rather than rubber. If you could spec your own motor/wheel/pedal combo, then it’d make sense, but splashing this much cash to get a second wheel purely for a different texture hardly seems like the best route to driving nirvana.
TM Leather 28 GT Wheel Add-On
WHEELY HOT Top quality materials and build; plenty of controls; multi-system compatibility.
WHEELY NOT Only worth it if you’ve got a leather fetish; quick release system is anything but.
$150, www.thrustmaster.com