Hi Ray,
I can recommend that you take a look at Wheelskins, a link is below.
Several years ago, I used a couple of their leather steering wheel covers on a few different cars. One was an old Volvo, that had large diameter plastic steering wheel which is thin, compared to a padded modern steering wheel. It did make a difference by making the wheel less slippery and more comfortable overall.
If you want a little thicker of a steering wheel, you can build up the thickness of your steering wheel a bit with some bicycle handle bar tape (cloth), then put the cover over that. It will make some difference, but not necessarily a whole lot. The cover is pretty straight forward to install, but it can be tedious so take your time and should turn out well.
Contact Wheelskins directly, they may have some suggestions for your application.
https://wheelskins.com
Gloves, as mentioned above, are also an option and I have used fingerless string back cycling gloves and they work quite well. They are flexible and have a bit of padding.
If you really want to go all out, you can try both
- Tim