|
 My daily-beater van has a factory-equipped set of 17×7 aluminum wheels. They’re a twin-five-spoke variety, with polished face and grey-painted inner, to really make those spokes pop. I’d say they’re ugly as sin, but I’ve sinned plenty in my near 50 years, and these wheels are far worse. They’re a weird size with a weird bolt circle, and so it’s going to take some research to find something that a) I like, b) won’t add 50 pounds of unsprung weight, and c) I can afford.
As I look through catalogs and through online ads, it occurs to me that it’s the spoked look that I’m having trouble with. Spokes have been around forever. Spokes have been with us since the horse-and-buggy days. Spokes are over-done. Spokes are a stylistic tradition that could stand to be put to rest. Spokes later turned into wire wheels, which have to be the spindliest, wobbliest excuses for wheels ever; heavier but prettier artillery wheels were surely a wiser hedge against our nation’s undeveloped highways at the time?
"Spokes are impractical and over." To some, thems fightin' words.
| 
Re: Are Spoked Wheels Played Out? One Hemmings Editor Considers
