What if instead of fingers, you had some kind of teflon or plastic disk that surrounded the stick. When you shift the disk would slide around between two rings placed one on top of the other, with just enough space for the disk. So net effect would be a flat smooth surround of the stick.
awesome, good luck on the project and can't wait till your done.
If you do offer these for sale my interior will be decked out with original guju oilcaps and shift gates, lol Forget MoMoing up my interior i'll just by your s***