Wheel sizes that ruin a normally acceptable design.

I've seen a few wheels in my time that look great on a website. But once ordered, and received, the look changes due to the width and offset. 
 

anyone know of a way around this?

I think every wheel design has a sweet spot when it comes to diameter.
 

Panasports look great in 13 and 14 inch, but start to look a little awkward at 15. 

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

I think every wheel design has a sweet spot when it comes to diameter.
 

Panasports look great in 13 and 14 inch, but start to look a little awkward at 15. 

That is definitely one of them. the offset and backspacing play a role as well. Some of those Panasports look goofy as hell with a deep dish offset

I have also seen some wheels where the spokes either bend concave or convex, or it gains a spoke or loses A spoke, depending on diameter. It can really ruin a wheel.

In reply to Vajingo :

Compmotive used to be bad about this... your 5 spoke wheel became a 6 spoke in 17" and larger diameters, lol. 

Wasn't there 4 spoke 13" Cragars back in the day?  Strange looking wheels.

Torque Thrusts start looking a little odd to me at 17", any bigger, and they are awful.

Anything over 15"

EvanB (Forum Supporter) said:

Anything over 15"

I think a lot of 10 spoke designs look better if they are more than 15"

Before I would buy any wheel I'd find pictures of it installed on my model of car, or find a real car locally that has the same wheels. I'm fortunate that the greater Detroit area has a lot of car groups for my current vehicles. As for the diameter issue, each wheel needs to be properly scaled to the size of the vehicle and some classic designs aren't going to scale up well. The other side of the coin is when you see an older muscle car with its original wheels, like a '68 Camaro on 14" wheels, and they look positively tiny. A 16" TorqThrust would look fine, an 18" would be too much. And we all have different taste when it comes to what looks right or wrong.

noddaz said:

Wasn't there 4 spoke 13" Cragars back in the day?  Strange looking wheels.

Yup--and some right here over on the Classic site. 

I was just thinking the other day how not all "banana-spoke" wheels--Panasport, Watanabe, Minilite, etc.--are created equal. Sometimes it is size/offset/color. Sometimes it's just the brand. 

Even Fuchs-style wheels look weird when too big. I don't need 19-inch Fuchs: 15s and 16s, please. 

And, yeah, in general there's a sweet spot in that 13-to-16-inch size. 

noddaz said:

Wasn't there 4 spoke 13" Cragars back in the day?  Strange looking wheels.

A friend of mine had four spoke Keystones on a '63 Falcon too. Also strange, but it worked a little better than the four spoke Cragars.

eastsideTim said:

Torque Thrusts start looking a little odd to me at 17", any bigger, and they are awful.

That Torino I built had 17" Torq-Thrusts.  They were kind of "meh" to me because the sidewalls were too small.

Necessary for the big brakes, but they looked kind of off on a 60s/70s car.

That said, switching from the stock 18" wheels on teh R to 17" wheels (stock V70R wheels, same pattern/model of wheel) took it from donk-y looking to reet.

Tire shape, I think, also has a lot to do with it.  Some tires can make any wheel look ugly.

The racing Datsun 510s ran a four spoke wheel (the brand escapes me at the moment) and I had a set of them in 1976.

Some wheels look great with a little lip, others look best with some concavity instead. I am a huge fan of gold baskets which look a little off without a little bit of lip.

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

The racing Datsun 510s ran a four spoke wheel (the brand escapes me at the moment) and I had a set of them in 1976.

Libres.

Grew up wanting these...

Purple Frog (Forum Supporter) said:

Grew up wanting these...

I still want those

Purple Frog (Forum Supporter) said:

Grew up wanting these...

And they look berkeleying awful bigger than a 15.

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

And the four-spoke wheels used on SCCA Formula Renault back in the day looked similar:

As I remember, the molds were lost in a fire. 

wait wait..... did spec racer ford start off as formula renault????


edit: went and looked it up started as Sports Renault in 1984...

Huh... the things you learn..

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I have never hear another person besides myself and Gray Baskerville use the word reet. Thank you.

Soft 8s are one of the few styles I've liked in every size I've seen

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

Soft 8s are one of the few styles I've liked in every size I've seen

Despite them being heavy, they are likely to be the choice for my current project.  I'm having a hard time finding any other 17" wheel that looks right on a square body S10.  Not a huge fan of C4 sawblades.

The recent trend of solid steel "rat rod"  wheels like the US Wheel Series 68 look great in everything from 15 to 20"