Wheel Styles:
As you will probably know, and will have seen from our website, Alloy Wheels come in many different sizes and style. From many different manufacturers and in many finishes.
The first variation is the amount of spokes. Alloy Wheels range from a minimum of 3 spokes, in older designs right up to 150 spoke custom wire wheels.
The general standard for current Alloy Wheel designs are 5 – 9 spoke wheels or around 15 spokes, called multispoke. Below you will see some of the various designs available, from 5 to 16 spokes.
Ronal R41 5 Spoke Ronal R38 10 Spoke
Borbet TS 9 Spoke Borbet LS 15 Spoke
Each style of alloy wheel has its benefits. Five spoke wheels are popular as they give the illusion that they are bigger than they are because of the large gaps between the spoke. In addition they are easier to clean.
Somewhere in the middle are wheels with fairly high numbers of spoke such as 9 and 10. These are generally designs that follow manufacturers designs but with a greater influence on style.
The multispoke design is a style heavily influenced by the world or motorsport. This style can take longer to clean but give a specific motorsport appearance.
Other specific designs or trends are wheels with deeper outer rim/lip. These are best referred to as “deep dish”, these styles give the impression that a wheel is wider than it is because the spokes are set back in the rim. The size of the “dish” varies according to design, width and offset . These deep dish designs tend to be popular with German cars but this is not a restriction. A classic deep dish design with one of the biggest rims is the Borbet A which comes in a 9.0x16” with a dish of over 75mm. See an examples below:
Borbet A Size:9.0 x 16 Borbet Type T Size:8.0 x 14
The other main type of alloy wheel design are multi piece or spit rims. Again another motorsport inspired design, these wheels feature 2 and 3 components that bolt together to create the complete wheel. These designs usually feature a centre piece comprising of the spokes and then an outer rim. These styles not only give an expensive look, which they are, but allow variable widths i.e. 8.0x18” on the front and 10.0x18” on the rear. This kind of package is normally used on rear wheel drive vehicle that require larger rear tyres, such as the Porsche 911 Turbo which has 255/40ZR18 front tyres and massive 295/35ZR18 rear tyres.
The other main advantage of a multi piece wheel, as favour by motorsport users, is that the outer rim of the wheel alone can be replaced if damaged. Below is an example of multi piece or spilt rim alloy wheels.
Ronal GT 2 piece
