How a young Italian racer became a supplier of champions

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Momo from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car

December, 2012 - Terry Shea

In 1964, when John Surtees won the Formula 1 driver's title, his gifted hands gripped a new style of steering wheel. Gone was the large-diameter wheel with the thin wooden rim. In its place was a thick, leather-rimmed, small-diameter, three-spoke wheel sold by a young Italian named Gianpiero Moretti.

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Amateur racer Moretti, then a political science student, had a friend craft a steering wheel for him in the early 1960s. His fat-rimmed, three-spoke design was a big departure from the typical thin-rimmed, large-diameter wheels then being used by both racing and sports-car makers. He mounted one in his Lancia Appia Zagato race car, and other competitors soon took notice. Before he knew it, he had a little side business making steering wheels for other racers. His big break came when Eugenio Dragoni, Ferrari's team manager, bought one for Surtees and had it installed on his V-8-powerd Ferrari 158 during his championship year in 1964.

Needless to say, being a supplier to a world champion has its perks. Moretti's side business became a full-time concern when he incorporated Momo Sas in Verona in 1966, the name a concatenation of Moretti and Monza. The relationship with Ferrari grew to include a contract in the late 1960s to provide steering wheels for the race cars, and later the road cars. Of course, this being Ferrari during the Enzo era, it meant a relationship with a mercurial and spiteful partner that could change on a moment's notice, which it did. Due to a perceived slight when Moretti won a race against the Scuderia's official entry in the 1970s, Enzo canceled the deal. Of course, given the quality of the Momo design and workmanship, Enzo eventually came back to Moretti and Momo.

Even as he continued racing sports cars (a career that would be topped by a victory in the Daytona 24 Hours in 1998 in a Ferrari 333SP when he was in his 50s), Moretti expanded Momo's product line, introducing steering wheels for road cars and alloy road wheels in the 1970s, though some savvy sports-car drivers already had adopted the steering wheels for their street cars, certainly an easier task in the pre-airbag days. Within a short period of time, Momo's quality reputation extended to their alloy wheels and in 1983, Nelson Piquet scored the first Formula 1 title for Momo wheels with his Brabham BT52. By then, Momo steering wheels were quite common in F1 cars, and today, the units produced for F1 teams incorporate the sophisticated controls and displays required to operate such machinery. By this time, the Momo black and yellow logo was commonplace at circuits around the world, plastered on not only Moretti's Ferrari and Porsche race cars, but also on garages, cars and driver uniforms.

Momo continued to expand their product line, offering shift knobs and boots, pedals and, ultimately, racing and high-performance seats, differentiating their products with the same sort of quality and made-in-Italy cachet that made the steering wheels and alloys so popular. In the late 1980s, Momo began to land more OEM contracts, such as supplying steering wheels for Rolls-Royce. By the end of the 1990s, Momo steering wheels had been offered on everything from the Mitsubishi and Subaru rally homologation specials to Aston Martins, Hondas, Fiats, Citroëns, Porsches, Opels, Mazdas and many other makes. In 1993, Momo created another division, Momo Corse, to make and sell fire-resistant clothing, including driving suits, gloves and related safety equipment.

Breed Technologies, an American company that was a pioneer in airbag sensor and inflator technology, purchased Momo in 1995 as Moretti stepped aside. Breed was at the height of their market share for airbag-related equipment and on a buying spree at the time, snapping up a variety of companies. Breed was soon billing itself as the largest steering wheel manufacturer in the world. Along with that acquisition spree, Breed had accumulated a massive debt that left them in bankruptcy as competitors emerged with alternative sensors and airbags. Washington, D.C.-based Carlyle Group acquired Breed in 2003 and reorganized the company, spinning off Momo to a group of private investors from Italy.

Today, the Momo name, which now incorporates the word Italy as part of its famous logo, continues to sell steering and road wheels, seats, driving suits and shift knobs as well as a line of Italian-made watches manufactured under license.


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