Wheels are an incredibly personal choice.
They’re a defining feature on a build, and more often than not, the greatest divider of opinions. Asides from their significant functionality, wheels can have the single biggest impact on a vehicle’s aesthetic. The same car with no other changes, can look completely different on two different wheel designs.
Then there’s the art of fitment itself. Figuring out and choosing the diameter along with the correct width, offset and tyre size are crucial decisions. Poke or tuck? Dished or flat-faced? Concavity? What about reverse mounting the faces? Cast or forged? What about the finish? Single or multi-piece?
For something that seems so simple, it’s actually a pretty comprehensive subject matter. Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, the potential outcomes and results are almost infinite.
As you can imagine, Wörthersee plays host to as many wheel choices and ideas as you could ever hope to see. While by no means is this a complete study, I did try to achieve a decent spread of variety over the few days I was at the lake.
It probably goes without saying that the BBS RS is a popular choice amongst the VW Group fans…
While I certainly consider myself a fan of more traditional wheel designs, I can appreciate the concept and execution behind some of the more intricate designs that have been emerging over the last few years. With companies now incorporating 3D printing into the process, I’m sure these designs will continue to evolve in years to come, although I still won’t fancy trying to clean them.
I did that find the lack of TE37s here disturbing. It’s something I might have to rectify in 2020.
Paddy McGrath
Instagram: pmcgphotos
Twitter: pmcgphotos
paddy@speedhunters.com
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that center locking wheels on the r32 is mental!
Love the feature. Im a big fan of wheels
Crikey, the M4 on the rotiforms looks a bit mental
BBS wheels still rocking it with the newbies
Hey Paddy, care to elaborate? Which companies and how are they incorporating 3d printing? this is the first I've heard of it.
There's also the process of using 3D printing to create wax masters for investment casting of metals. Instead of printing the wheels directly out of metal powder, a wax part is printed. The wax part is then covered with a ceramic slurry shell, and then the wax is melted/poured and burned out, leaving a hollow mold for metal to be cast into. After casting, the mold is broken off the metal part. This is not a new casting process, however the ability to 3D print the wax master is fairly new (the materials are probably less than 20 years old IIRC), which cuts out most of the tooling steps in the middle and makes it great for high detail casting and low quantity prototypes.
My point is that 3D printing has been involved in things like wheels for quite a while, it's just not sexy and capable as something like electron beam melting of titanium powder.
HRE have created the first set of 3D-printed titanium wheels: https://www.hrewheels.com/wheels/concepts/hre3d
crazyness! those look like a PITA to clean though. I wonder how they will survive rumble strips at a track or an encounter with a largish pothole that reside in many large cities.
Wheelly Good post, didn't once, get tyred of reading!
I like the Pirellis best...they won't never not look good.
Completely agree, the Pirelli's on that Mk1 are prefect!
Droooool
Whats the name of those 5 spoke rotiform's that are on that red M4?
Not enough 14s on 60 profile tyres for me haha
Please do more shoots like this. I LOVE wheels!! thanks!
Split P-slots look amazing
weird not to see a set of Nothelle's...
Quite surprised at the lack of Rotiforms, my knowledge of th Euro car seen is limited but from what I've seen, Rotiforms and European cars are a match made in heaven.
cool feature Paddy! 2 questions - 1) do you have a particular method for getting the camera exactly lined up on the wheel centre for these shots? 2) what's the black 5-spoke wheel on the dark green Porsche?
1. Photoshop/Lightroom;
2. Rotiform ROC.
Scratch that, it's not a Rotiform WGR, it's a Rotiform ROC from the current range. ROC has that spoke profile and larger radius at the ends. Final answer.
The scallops around the center-to-rim bolts, and the flat 5 spokes, make me think it's a Rotiform WGR from a few years ago (the current spokes look slightly different now).