Wheels! They’re such an important part of the car because they’re what makes the car roll. No wheels, no drivey, it’s as simple as that. They’re also a crucial piece of a car’s design. Too big, and a car looks silly, like some kind of doofy joke. Too small, and the car looks differently ridiculous, but ridiculous still. Under normal circumstances, a wheel and tire package should neatly fill the guards, with maybe a little tire poke to the outside if you’re going for an edgy tuner look.
Of course, some cultures go to extremes. Donks ride on gigantic wheels, to the point where they look ridiculous and barely operate as a car anymore. The opposite trend was at one point a thing in the lowrider community, where tiny wheels made the cars similarly undrivable, to say nothing of brake clearances, either.
But it comes down to more than just mere size. Personally, I’m a big fan of five-spoke wheels. I think they look great on a whole ton of vehicles, from JDM classics to older American cars, too. I used to run a nice set on my Mazda MX-5, which really made it look quite nice.
As an aside, the benefit of the MX-5 is that here are tons of examples online you can use to guide your wheel choice. Research told me that 15-inch wheels were ideal, and guided me towards the right offset to get the look I was going for. You can see my car in the header image.
I tend to find that vintage cars look better on vintage wheels. I saw a Lada drop-top that looked great on a classic 70s-style spoked design. That car may have come out in the 1990s in Australia, but it looked much older. Thus, the older wheels seemed to work with its general aesthetic.
Similarly, the Holden Hurricane absolutely rocked its unique wheels that were reminiscent of a spinning finned heatsink. Ironically, the lack of ventilation meant they’d probably be terrible for keeping the brakes cool, but they looked like they were high-performance items.
Maybe your tastes differ from mine. Perhaps you love tri-spokes, or those horrible single-spoke wheels that look as unbalanced as the guy sitting by himself in an empty subway carriage. Or maybe you think the C8 Corvette should have come out with a set of 14-inch Watanabes. And speaking of Corvettes: do salad shooters work on everything? Maybe!
Image credits: Alfa Romeo; Lewin Day
Simple and easy to clean wins for me. Using 5 spokes now, easy to fit brush for cleaning and same for the barrels .
Racing Service Watanabes, which are better than Minilites and Panasports. Because, if you have to, you can get them overnight from Japan.
Blacked-out steelies.
Colin Star Sharks (manufactured by SSR). Just watch the latest episodes of Juicebox and get convinced why.
Apart from that, I’m a big fan of the Toyota Celica supra Mk2 wheels.
Pretty much any optional wheel you could get on a Pontiac in the mid-to-late ’70s: The Polycast “Honeycomb,” the “snowflake” that succeeded it (especially in Sky/Red/Yellow Bird colors), and even the Rally II (also known as Holden’s “steel sports” wheel).
My man. Pontiac had the best factory wheels of any American automaker for a long, long time, pretty much starting with the eight lug wheels of the 1960s. And the gold lace wheels from the late 80s/early 90s might have been cribbed from Europe, but they were perfection, especially on a Trans Am in Medium Green:
https://photos.classiccars.com/cc-temp/listing/180/4159/43621166-1992-pontiac-firebird-trans-am-thumb.jpg
I have an irrational fondness for the body-colored wheels I had on my first car, and 84 Camaro. (Base model, but Quadrajet 305, 700R4) fond because they were so 80s, irrational because they were a #### to keep clean. The 5 spoke from that era was sweet too, though.
ATS Cups https://www.pinterest.com/pin/poszukuje-zdj-felg-ats-cup-z-pomalowanym-rodkiem–34551122118574787/
I put Moon disks on my first generation Scion xB. It was a perfect combination. Simple circles on a simple box shape. And my GMC Sonoma stepside looked just right with all-polished American Racing 200S wheels.
Campagnolo coffin wheels, minilite, and Porsche phone dials are all great, but as some others have said not all wheels work on all cars.
I think the most important thing is that the wheel suits the car, which usually means period correct and right size and often right region (eg Japanese wheels on Japanese cars, Euro on Euro etc)
That being said I’m a sucker for some Volk CE28s, BBS LMs (particularly in three piece) or some SSR meshies.
I have more of a fetish for steel wheels – my favourite is the silver Police Interceptor rims on the VL Commodore, or in a Ford stud pattern (to fit my Valiant ute) the Ford Taxi spec equivalent. Both were restyled versions of factory wheels that normally were black and covered with plastic hubcaps – both featured a ring of circular holes around the rim (differently sized to the black versions), silver paint, and a centre cap.
In alloy wheels it would be a 5 spoke design with the spokes tapering as they head out towards the rim – favourite of these was the Road Rebel, second Globe Bathursts (both Australian designs). But I do particularly dislike versions of these made in smaller sizes for 4 stud cars, where they were a 4 spoke redesign.
As for those Salad Shooter rims, I do love them – on the right car turbofan style looks amazing. In Australia about the closest you could get was a set of wheels from an R31 Skyline TI, and leave off the centre cap that normally covered the hub recess.
Original minilites, any ronal, and bbs 3 pc.
Did I miss something, or is there no love for AMG wheels?
Body-colored Pentas on an 80’s AMG S-class are absolute 80’s perfection.
Also love the Monoblocs on just about any Merc.
TE37s work on everything.
Dudeoutwest and Epochellipse happened to give my two nominations one right after the other (p2 of comments): Saab Aztec and Lacia Delta Integrale!
It depends on the car because some wheels are perfectly of the time and complement the shape and some wheels clash. A Porsche 911 on Fuchs 5 spokes is perfect, a 911 on gold Daytons is ridiculous.
Panasports or Minilites perfectly a lot of cars from the 60s on, and I really like the turbine spoke wheels on early 80s Audis.
A perfect time and place wheel is Ronal Teddy Bear which only looks right on an A1 VW with 80s style mods. Put them on an A4 Jetta, they look wrong, add 90s “tribal” graphics, they also look wrong.
This is one of those times where the slow server hosting the site and the inability to share images is a disadvantage.
My favorite wheels are kind of odd, as in the crosslace mesh wheels that came on a ’88 Pontiac Fiero GT, and specifically the gold center wheels.
1. Steelies, preferably in a rational size (17” or less)
2. Alloys, 17-18”, 5 spoke.
However, they do need to be large enough to fit over the brakes.
steel =D
’70s Turbine wheels
Bingo –
As seen on 1970’s Lincolns, Volvo 260s – and certain new Mercedes-Benz S Classes.
the Ronal Bear 😛
I once tried convincing my brother to put them on his car. Never succeeded though ????
Campagnolo 40802 in gold for me please.
I’m going with the Minilite. I don’t have an appropriately small/British/roadstery car for them, but if I did, I’d be all over that goodness.
Can here for this. So many of the little light cars I like look perfect with them that they qualify as my top choice
my 1967 Mini wears them proudly in the stock 10″ size
Overall I’d have to say 5 spokes are my favorite with the Mustang “Bullitt” being the favorite of the bunch with of course the American Racing version that was their inspiration right there with them. I also like the Magnum 500 as found on many OE applications and the Buick Rallye.
Runner up status goes to the good old “Slots” and Turbine/multi spoke wheels.
4 spokes are fine on 4 lug cars, but just say no to 6 or 7.
One of the reasons I purchased my current DD is because it had the 20 spokes instead of the 6 spoke that was more easily found.
I took the 7 spokes off of my Thunderbird and put on some of the factory 20 spokes.
The Ronal teddy bear.
This is the correct answer.
+1