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Photography by Afshin Behnia, Edward Marius, & Courtney Cutchen
One of the hidden benefits of working for Petrolicious is that I am essentially in a constant dialogue with “the community”. I get to meet die hard car enthusiasts from all walks of life who have extremely deep opinions on what exactly I should do with each nut, bolt, and grille on my car. “Shave the rain gutters down!” “Backdate the bumpers, man!” are regular phrases I hear from mostly positive Porsche guys when I pop by the shop on a Sunday afternoon. All fine recommendations, but never have I more consistently seen polarization than when I talk to people about redoing my wheels.
Here in L.A., it seems everyone knows a guy who knows a guy who does the best “wheelwork you’ve ever seen”.
There’s always a reference to a guy with a “3 year waiting list” to redo Fuchs, who for an ungodly amount of money will happily take my original, patina’d 15-inch wheels and make them better than new. It’s an attractive offer, but I can’t quite make up my mind about what I should do with them, and I have a feeling there’s a few people out there like me.
So, are you going to redo your wheels? Or, perhaps more usefully, how did yours turn out?
Guitar Slinger – you’re back! Damn you, I’ve even had to sign up to welcome your return (I was a faceless lurker for a loooong time). You are controversial, sometimes well off beam but sometimes so painfully right. I’d actually stopped passing by for a while as there little interesting debate going on.
Anyway, re: wheels, I agree that it depends on how poor they are – I recently refurbished a set of Enkeis (for my extremely modest NA Miata – no Ferrari’s or Porsche’s here I’m afraid) as they were well beyond a patina level of ageing. Let’s see some photos Ted then we can help you decide!
I am perpetually looking to upgrade the look of my cars. My wife’s Infiniti was easy, as everybody and their brother makes something to fit in 14 to 22. I am NOT a dub guy, however, so when a set of cherry 19 Pirelli’s came up from a total, I jumped and her car looks great. My Lincoln Mark VIII, however, has an unusual 108 mm spacing it shares with Ferrari and very few others. I am currently trying to make the five spoke 16’s from a Taurus look like an American wheel of the early 1970’s. I am losing two inches of diameter, but I still have the Fondmetal 18’s for my summer tires. Besides ride height, wheels are a great way to inexpensively change your look. Great fun, I think.
Mr Lange .. I know its a bit of a slippery slope…. along with being a fair bit more expensive to boot … but if I were in y’alls shoes … with that drop dead gorgeous red Daytona of yours …
……. I’d go for the ‘ gold ‘ … hands down … no questions asked .. wouldn’t even give it a 2nd thought in fact 😉
Hmmm … y’alls one sick little puppy … aint ya Senor Savile . I mean really . Not only is your comment both profane , xenophobic . racist and insulting towards whoever it was intended for … but your word order is .. out of order … not to mention misspelled and misplaced to boot not to mention completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand . In future you might want to consider the fact that more than a few of us here are bonafide polyglots before posting
Mr Moderator ? Methinks your services are required on this one
It would help immensely if you had included a couple of detail photos of the specific wheels in question . Otherwise its kind of hard to proffer an informed and intelligent opinion when there’s nothing to base it on … other than a ‘ blind ‘ opinion .. which is pretty much no opinion [ worth considering ] .. at all
I will say this though when it comes to a fair amount of the so called classic wheel refurbishers doing business presently [ especially in the LA basin and SF area ] Buyer Beware … there’s a lot more Dog & Pony Show going on than genuine substance and craftsmanship lurking out there ready to take bundles of your dollars out of your wallet for little or no [ other than immediate short term gratification visuals ] benefit what so ever … especially when it comes to the more desirable ‘ classic ‘ wheels such as Fuchs etc