What is with the smoothing?
... yes, probably should add some polygons to the steering-wheel ...
Try to use normal maps instead of adding more polygons. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping
It will save you performance since you will only use texture.
... man, im bad at anything involving textures outside filling a square whyte some paint. Not to mention artistic jobs like that Michalangelo. (if i could draw some of that stuff i have sometimes in my head)
- but can UV-map the rest of the cabin and put for someone to finish the texture work ...
Those look actually like not smoothed mesh normals. In practice that means there are multiple normals per vertex, and importer has to duplicate the vertices just to achieve that non-smooth look. If you smooth the mesh, there will be a single normal per vertex, smaller mesh after import, and a better look. Non-smooth mesh is used where you actually need to obtain an edge.
The upper part is a 35 segment half-circle whyte a 14 vert. oval equal-sided triangle (profile is as it should be at the orig. real-life wheel). No doubles there. for a edge, you can (in accordance to the edge radius) smooth it up physically by adding 1-3 edges. But up-close, equi-distant and equi-angled points (specially at circles)
go always "edgy" when coming close enough for the optical blending effect to kick in. (compare the instrument panel clocks - if ya sit up-straight in the seat and when ya go look at the very details of the circle). Always just so much there can be done white geometry at certain distance - just like the Pythagoras circle-test by using a rope and ever dividing a square.
Normal mapping is there-for much appreciated when light gets un-evenly distributed at the edges creating an optical illusion of blending-in whyte the faces.