posted at the Cohort by dman-x
I know; I’m hardly the first one (or so I have to assume) to say it, but whenever I see a car (or shot) like this, all I can think is: Hot Wheels. And that the hot Wheels craze, must have influenced a lot of future big wheel and tire buyers.
Children are very deeply influenced by their toys, and how could a generation (or two, or three) not want to replicate this look on their own cars? Right down to the positive camber on the rear wheels. So where are the red-wall tires?
Awful, just awful. A perfectly good way to ruin a nice car. I had some Hot Wheels cars back in the ’70s and was never inspired to do this.
All I think of is tire damage every time you turn or hit a bump.
Same as those idiot Twenties. I see cooooool drivers slowing down to 0.3 mph to enter a parking lot, creating a traffic jam for the sake of cooooolness. What’s the point of LOOKING fast if you have to drive like Great-aunt Pearline?
They don’t even look fast to me. If they actually were fast, I’d assume Porsche would be making similar rims.
I think the OEMs know what’s best for the vehicles that they design.
Agree 96% of aftermarket wheels made in the past 20 years are hideous. Except for few exceptions the stock wheels look best. Auto companies spend a lot of dough on stylists and engineers, Certainly most know what they’re dong!
Honestly I’d bump that up to 99-100% if we’re talking the last twenty. Pretty much the only aftermarket wheels that look any good are replicas of factory wheels.
The only wheels that look good to me are Centerlines or most of Cragar’s line.
+2
The only aftermarket wheel that I would like to own is the American Torque Thrust. But then, they were designed in the late ’50’s or early ’50’s. Those are what Steve McQueen had on the Mustang he drove in Bullitt. They look good on most anything.
Fast? Since when do full face chrome wheels with a design that looks like crinkled tinfoil and nonexistent rubber say ‘fast’?
True, more aggressive performance looking wheels can be had in larger diameters but these AINT that!
Ugh. Those dubs look hideous. Ruins the look of that Jag for sure.
Photo is in Hayward, California on I-880, Northbound, by the 92 interchange. Not too far from me!
I did have lots of Hot Wheels cars as a kid, but the big wheels on a real life car just doesn’t cut it.
Talk about eliminating the “class” from a classy car. Pretty common here in the Bay Area. As Chris M. says below, it only works on a limited group of cars and to a certain size limit.
Precisely. I am always amazed to see near luxury/luxury cars candy painted and put on big dumb clown shoes. Why not just do that to an old Taurus or Camry and save a little money? At that point with all the stupid mods, it really doesn’t matter what the car once was.
A luxury car is classy pretty much as-is from the factory. You start adding crap to it, it goes from class to trash pretty quick.
Klassy with a “K” is the expression I’ve heard.
The tires on the Hot Wheels T-bird have way more sidewall than the rubber bands on the Jag though.
Exactly.
Those wheels on that Jag do look ridiculous.
However, I’m going to dissent by saying that I think *some* cars look good with bigger wheels. 18″, 19″, even 20″. A big boat like a 70’s GM B-body can pull off 20s without having to raise the ride height or looking otherwise ridiculous. I know I’m in the minority here, where most folks think it’s sacrilege to go above the stock size, but sometimes it works. Pretty much nothing looks good with 22’s or higher though, and if you can’t fit the wheels without fender or suspension mods, then they’re too big and you need to reconsider.
Considering the number of hot wheels I had, maybe I’m the illustration of this “problem”.
I think anything designed with 14-15″ wheels in mind doesn’t look “right” with anything larger than 17″, and tires with an outside diameter comparable to the originals.
I have to disagree on that….and part of it is my taste in old school style. But a lot of it is that newer wheels just don’t have the width or offset to work on older vehicles. Seeing an older bodystyle with huge tall rims tucked way into the fenders makes it look like it would topple over in a corner. And the overall stance isn’t unlike an old steam locomotive. At least on this jag, they poke out a bit, giving it a beefy stance. Those same wheels on a ’71 Cutlass (and Ive seen that kind of garbage) would look preposterous.
As a rule I hate skirted fenders, and most of the time I see people opt for 20s on old stuff, a third of the wheel is tucked under the fender opening in an effort to correct the otherwise goofy looking stance of having a larger wheel /tire combo nets, essentially creating a skirted effect. No thanks.
Plus raised white letter tires, white lines, red lines, ect. often directly compliment other elements present in those cars, the mandatory plain black sidewall on anything 17″ or above takes away any possible opportunity for that effect.
Every time I see a vehicle with wheels that are way different to what the engineers designed the drive train for, I wonder how it effects economy, driveability, reliability etc. I have a 1988 F150 300-6 4×4 that I licensed this year; after only using as a snowplow for the past few years. It came with oversized white-spoke rims and big mudder snow tires. On the road, it was miserable to drive as the gearing was all wrong for the wheels. I changed back to the factory size P235R15 tires and rims (lowering the truck about 4 inches in the process) and now it is relatively pleasurable to drive. I suppose an automatic transmission would compensate for oversize wheels to a certain degree, but I doubt most people change anything beyond the wheels and tires.
I’d look into the rear gearing for more power if needed.
We own a 1995 F150 with the 300, and it’s a complete dog. The combination of the Mazda 5-Speed and the high rear end gearing make it gutless. We own a 1992 Dakota with the 3.9L V6 that has much more power, and can tow/haul better. It has a much deeper rear end (I believe around 3.90). That little truck does very, very well for what it is.
Agreed on those Mazda 5 speeds, they just don’t belong in the bigger trucks. I shredded mine after the first season of plowing and then replaced it with the dinosaur T-18; I can live without OD for my needs. I have found most 82-96 F150’s have a 3:08 rear end regardless of the motor or tranny combo. A few 4×4’s came with a 3:55 locking diff. but they aren’t that common.
The money spent on those crazy looking wheels and tires would have been much better spent on a decent paint job instead.
I hope these goof balls who put out-sized rims, reverse-rims and such on their cars enjoy continual repairs to their suspension!
I know of what I speak from my experience modifying my 1964 Impala’s suspension so many years ago when in the air force.
Nothing wrong with living one’s dream – just be prepared to pay for it!
Looks like the painter forgot to put a flex additive into the bumper paint. Fail.
The paint looks better in this picture than it did on the road (if that’s possible). It was either rattle can or a really quick and dirty spray job. The outer portions of the rims were a non-matching purple.
Pretty sure a low price was the primary concern when this owner was seeking the purple paint job. Flex additive is a couple bucks extra…and requires the painter to mix up another batch…who can afford such niceties?
22s are a great wheel size….for a class 8 truck. Silly kids, dubs are for
Trucks.
Wait till they make car rims large enough that you could swap them onto an Allis-Chalmers tractor.
The wheels/tires were the thing I hated about my hot wheels cars, I had an excellent sense of proportion as a kid.
Somewhere in the 90s HW started getting all stupid with the wheels on the cars. The ones I had were rocking classic coke bottles like the purple Cougar above. Hence, when it comes to wheels/tires Im very strict about an old school look.
I think the Hot Wheels craze MUST have impacted a number of future automobile designers!! The evidence shows in larger wheel/tire combos every year! Dubs just take it to the extreme….rubber band tires on oversized wheels = FAIL!! I NEVER thought that I would have a problem finding 225 R75/14 tires ( at a reasonable cost!), let alone whitewalls for my classic cars!! 🙂
If I see wheels like that on a vehicle at a used car lot, I’ll cross that one off my list.
$3k for rims and not a penny for maintenance. One of the car spotting games I play is “spot the car with sitting on wheels that cost more than it’s worth”. The recheck version is a old pick-up sitting on giant mudders.
I can vouch for the fact that the toys I had as a kid definitely influenced the cars that I like now. But that’s why Im so hot for 5 spoke coke bottle mags, with beefy tires like the HW car shown. I had some of those late 60s ‘spectraflame’ HW cars, as well as late 70s/early 80s ones in bright colors with huge side pipes, big chrome engine blocks and mag wheels. THAT says ‘fast car’ to me, not ugly looking dubs.
From my own experience, 18″ is the practical limit for wheel diameter. Anything bigger and it starts looking REALLY dorky, and Ive never ridden in or driven any vehicle that seemed to handle, ride, or drive properly with anything bigger than that.
I had 20’s on my Ram from the factory. When I went down to 17’s (torque thrust D’s) and a slightly shorter diameter tire, the driving characteristics of my rig changed night and day for the better. Those big rims are HEAVY, which slows you down. I have a bit more width and offset now, so combined with a lowering kit that truck absolutely CRUSHES corners like youd never believe. And the whole thing looks a lot like a tyco slot car that I had as a kid. Muscle truck beats blinged out baller anytime of the day!
Interesting perspective, Paul. I took this picture but never thought of the Hot Wheels influence. By the way, in the few days before and after taking this, I saw a 356 Speedster, MGA, a cheerful orange and white Squareback, an early Plymouth GTX, a stunning red Aston DB5, and several flathead V8 powered street rods, all on the road in traffic. But the only one that prompted me to pull out my iPhone and risk public safety and my clean driving record to get a snapshot, was this Jag. Last time I did that was to shoot a Trabant.
Ridonkulous
Here in the Sacramento area this style is not so bad but in the bay area…..yikes
Pretty sure these were stolen off a Chrysler 300, then listed on Craigslist, purchased by purple Jag guy. Both cars have 5-4.25 lug pattern. Who cares about offsets anyway? Heck, they “fit”, right?
Typical Barrio Beater / Ghetto Hoopty foolishness .
‘ unsafe at any speed ‘ =8-) .
-Nate
Kill it with fire before it lays eggs.
Wow, I guess I look at this car and wonder if “Custom Jaguar” is cast into the bottom. I wonder if it has freewheeling for those long downhill stretches.
This idiotic “dub” fad needs to die.
“Swangers” are popular down here in H-Town (Houston)
Retard spokes LOL even have to chop a hole in the fender skirt massive fail, thank gawd such gooberishness cant pass inspection here.
These kind of people are the reason country clubs and nicer restaurants have dress codes. Ugh. The fender skirt hole is one thing but nothing says style and grace like a chrome nekked lady spread eagle hood ornament, a trunk full of subs and a mirrored sign telling everyone that you’ve moved on up and by the way, here’s my self-proclaimed member measurements. Moving up indeed…
It boggles the mind why anyone thinks this gaudy crap is anything near classy to even cool. I suppose some folks must get a kick out of being assumed to be a drug dealer or pimp? Gotta love that extra cop attention coming their way too, I suppose…
I’m glad those aren’t popular here in BC (would they even pass inspection?). I’m getting my N decal in the near future and I’m nervous enough as-is, without having to deal with James Bond spikes!
It looks like a Hot Wheels paint job as well.
It’s all down to personal taste….or the lack of it;-)
It definitely does,now you’ve got me thinking was it a Charger, Barracuda or Javelin I had
Everybody can have the right for its own taste. Or so everybody can have the right to criticise. An S-Type with big-big wheels… Hmmm… 😕 Anyway…I have made once upon a time a trial cruise with an english reg. 3 Litre V6 S-Type RHD…equiped with standard factory wheels/tyres by the way… Still thinking that an XJ6 / XJ40 is a better ride… My Kids… 😕 (or My Kids Dad?)…we have collected approx. 200+ pcs. of Hot Wheels cars
during the years 🙂
I have to laugh every time I watch a Mecum auction and witness the broadcast team have to resist gagging every time a nice classic comes across the block with absolutely horrible wheels. Do us a favor, Bill Stevens, and rip these morons a new one.
I must say I’ve heard them come close on a few occasions, one of the reasons I prefer watching them to the Barret Jackson auctions is they tend to be a bit more vocal about their own opinions than the rather boring Barret Jackson announcers
This makes me sad. Really sad. The Fusion in front of it looks good though, although it kind of appears it’s wearing dubs too. At least they’re within the wheel well and likely not subject to wreckage during bumps and turns.
I’m going to ignore the Jag for a moment and further comment on the red car. Ironically since R&D knows best which is what a few have argued so far in terms of the the wheels on the Jag — to which I agree — I have to say Ford really messed up with the 1st gen. Fusion chrome taillight treatment. That is one instance where manufacturer design is a failure (in my opinion, of course). If I were to own the red Fusion, I would seriously look around for aftermarket taillights that would be all red or something more mainstream rather than period gaudy chrome that was popular then.
The Jaguar kinda reminded me of this car (but this one at least has some practical purpose)
And to think the owner of that Jag thinks that looks good! I hate it even more when you see a vintage Caprice or Fleetwood riding around with those ridiculous, huge, hideous wheels on it.