Interesting steering wheel rim

[pfarber]

Listed on ebay, evidently listed as Buy It Now. But what caught my eye was the wood rim... note that it looks to have an 'inner' and 'outer' section. The standard finger joints are there (see second pic) but it looks like there was some sort of repair(?).

swrepair.PNG (381.78 KiB) Viewed 4910 times

swrepair2.PNG (379.84 KiB) Viewed 4910 times

Good buy for $400, but would like to know whats up with the rim.