We already had a look at some of the popular Japanese “racing” wheels, as well as plenty of vintage Japanese wheels, and now it is time to finish up this “Cool Japanese Wheels” series with a glimpse into the world of high end multi-piece and other “lipped” wheels that can be found on everything from Rauh Welt Porsches’ to VIP sedans and wagons. Nearly every Japanese wheel manufacturer offers wheels to this market and new models are appearing all the time. There are so many different models of wheels out there, so as in the other posts I will be sticking to the more well known wheel models in attempt to give an intro for some of the folks who might not be familiar with this stuff.
Well let’s get started then.
Work Euroline Series
When it comes to multi-peice “VIP” wheels, the Work Euroline is about as original as it gets, although you can see the style was clearly inspired by high end European designs including in the OEM AMG Mercedes wheels. The Euroline can be found in everything from tiny kei car sizes to giant custom widths and wild offsets for widebody VIP sedans. There are a few different models of the Euroline, but the original Euroline DH is the most well known. In addition to the Work Euroline itself, many other companies have made wheels with a very similar design, The SSR Vienna and Ray’s Victrix series come to mind here. Although there are many newer luxury wheel designs out now, the Euroline continues to be a mainstay among VIP and van builders. They also appear on street drift cars quite often.
Work VS Series
Work’s VS line of wheels is also very popular and they can be found on all sorts of cars including the Ford Mustang seen in the photo above. The wheel in the photo is the five-spoke VS-KF, a model that is seen often on drift cars. In fact, both of the Mark II’s from Team Magician run VS-KF’s. Work currently offers the VS-KF in a few different styles, as well as the VS-XX which has a mesh spoke design. Both models can be had in diameters up to 20″. Perfect for those late model big body luxury cars.
Work Varianza Series
One of the more recently added lines to Work’s catalog is the Varianza series. The wheels seen on the Lexus GS in the photo above are the Varianza F2S. Some of the other lines of that Work has include the LS and Schwert series. Personally, I prefer the Euroline and VS wheels over a lot of these newer designs, but maybe I have just not gotten used to seeing the newer designs yet. The offsets on the newer models also seem to be more conservative than the older wheels, but I guess that mostly reflects the cars that they are going on.
Work Meister S1
Ah yes, the Work Meister. In my opinion one of the most timeless and attractive wheel designs out there. This wheel is available in both two and three-piece versions and the three-piece model is available in sizes up to 18″x15J! If anyone has a photo of some 15J Meisters, I’d love to see it! The universal appeal of this wheel means that it can be seen on everything from VIP sedans to D1GP cars to RWB Porsches’. Like other iconic wheels I have mentioned like the RS Watanabe and Volk TE37, I don’t think the Work Meister S1 will ever go out of style.
Weds Kranze Series
Weds Wheels offers a bunch of high end luxury wheels in their Kranze line and the designs range from simple one-piece models to custom multi-piece jobs. The wheel on the Lexus GS in the photo above is the Bazeria which has you covered in sizes all the way up to 20″x12J. Of course wheels like this also can be seen on many European luxury sedans as well as the standard Japanese domestic models. Again, this is further testament to the high quality that is present in nearly all of these Japanese-made wheels.
Weds Borphes
Although it appears that this wheel has been discontinued by Weds (didn’t see it in their current catalog), the Weds Borphes is certainly worth a mention here. You probably recognize the car in the photo as the EXE Life Z33 that Antonio featured earlier this year with its set of Borphes’ in ultra aggressive 19″ fitment and healthy dose of negative camber. Maybe I am just old fashioned, but I think that these older wheel designs are a lot more tasteful than most of the newer stuff that has been coming out over the past couple years. Times change I guess, but at least there is still lots of love for these older wheels.
Volk Racing GT/SF Series
I covered a lot of the Volk Racing wheels in the post about one-piece racing wheels, but Volk Racing also offers a number of high end two-piece wheels including the the GT and SF series. The wheels on the Top Secret R35 GT-R in the photo are the GT-C, a popular model which has been out for quite a while now. The GTF and GT-V are also very popular wheels for larger sports cars like the Z, Skyline, Supra etc. Although these wheels are not as light as the TE37 and CE28N, they offer all of the fantastic quality that Ray’s is known for.
SSR Professor SP1
The three-piece SSR Professor SP1 has a very similar design to the Work Meister S1, and to be honest I have a very hard time distinguishing between the two! The standard SP1 is available in widths up to 18″x13J. For smaller cars, there is a version of the wheel called the SP1R which is available in 15″ and 16″ with widths of up to 10J. The design of the SP1 is just a iconic as the Meister S1. By the way, does anyone have a surefire method of distinguishing the Professor from the Meister at a glance?
SSR Professor MS1
The Professor MS1 is a newer release from SSR and it has already caught on well among car builders. It has the same good quality as the original Professor SP1 but with a new meshface design. The MS1 can be had in sizes all the way up 19″x12.5J and is available in a few different colors. The wheels look a little underwhelming on the V35 Skyline seen above, but they look amazing on other cars like the Common Snapper S30Z which I wrote about on Auto Otaku last year.
Panasport G7-C5C2
The last wheel I want to mention is not as well known as some of the others in this post, but I couldn’t help from posting it here because I love it so much. The Panasport G7-C5C2 has to be one of my top five favorite wheels of all time. I just love how It looks like a multi-piece version of the OEM Skyline R32 GT-R wheel. These wheels were made famous on the Sexy Style 180SX from way back and they still look awesome to this day. They also look pretty cool on the Z31 in the photo above! Hopefully I can score a set of these for myself (and a cool car to mount them on) someday.
Well, that’s it for my overview of well known and desirable Japanese wheels. In the future we will probably be doing some more in depth stuff on our favorite wheels, but hopefully these articles will hold you over until then.
-Mike Garrett
OFFICIAL SPEEDHUNTERS SUPPLIERS
Work Meister S1 is obviously no.1 of this category...
Mike the best way to distinguish between the SP1 and the S1 is that the nuts/studs on the meister S1 goes all the way around the wheel while the SP1 stops at the spokes. I love the VSKFs myself.
i would kill for a set of the work meister S1 for the e30 m3.
make sure minevera's and equips make it into the next post
VS-XX is personally one of my favourite mesh rims, and i've even seen a set on a mk4 golf! very high positive offset though so it looked a little strange with the convex face
Guys, i heard that Trust has just gone under...do you guys have any news on that or can u do a follow up? It will be great to hear from the guys in Japan.
Yes Greddy unfortunately bankrupted (thanks also to those Chinese knock off). Eric Hsu, and Taro from GTchannel have some info's in regard on their sites.
Anyway, Mike it would be nice if you post the dry carbon fiber WEDS wheel (from the '08 TAS), even though it's been never released, and probably never will, and also the WEDS TC105N, I think that's a really cool wheel design.
I beg to differ some comments. Panasports is the hottest one of the bunch. But all of them freaking hot!
Looking at the pic you have there of the porker on Works, I can't see the small studs around the outside of the spokes. Therefore although there's a Work sticker on there, they could really be SSR SP1's.
Here's the Work Meister S1 with the small studs all the way around (in 3-piece guise):
http://www.work-wheels.co.jp/files/files_instal/0.53941200%201180253659_54.jpg
And here's the SSR Professor SP1:
http://www.rd-tanabe.com/lineup/ssr/sp1/img_frame/wheel04.jpg
Cheers
Brendan
You can see the bolts on the Porsche's Works, they're painted over in orange! Look carefully
I've got S1 3 pieces on my S14; I love them to pieces! Timeless wheels
agree with Brendan ))
it's not work s1 )) it's a ssr sp1
just FYI, that RWB car that has the "WORK" sticker on the barrel is actually rocking SSR SP1s, The Spokes on the SP1 go all the way to the Rivet line so the rivet line is broken up. The Work Meister's spoke don't go all the wat to the edge of the disk so the rivet line is continuous throughout the whole wheel. Also, the SSR's have flush hardware where at the Work Meister uses hardware that sticks out.