In our search for a car I've seen some XKs with the wood - and many without and just trying to figure out what the differentiation is?

At first I thought it was an XK w/luxury package - while the XKR were naturally designed to be sportier, and thus didn't have the wood. That was wrong when I saw an '08 with luxury package and no wood.

It's not important to the search, but just wanted to know why, and if perhaps other features are also accompanied by the wood wheel, and missing on the non-wood cars. I'm guessing it also has to do with model years.

 

If memory serves, 2007MY was the only one with the wood option for the steering wheel.

 

The wood trim was not related to the "Luxury" option (= all-leather interior as opposed to seat facings only in leather on the standard interior; "all leather" means every part of the seats, the entire dashboard and console, the door panel and rear cove panel trim). Unless a non-wood veneer was specified, every XK had wood trim (different wood veneers were available including Pian Black, depending on model year and model). The wood- trimmed wheel, however, was an option on the 07 cars.

 

And it is why I bought a 2007 XK. Nothing beats a wood + Leather wheel.

 

Heated steering wheel = leather wrapped

 

My '07 has the wood + leather and is heated.

 

+1