17" Wheel Selection Is Thin These Days

[KANE]

I wish Year One would release a 17" version of the aluminum wheel. The Rally wheels in 17" are really nice, but a 17" aluminum would be great. I'm sure someone would run those on a Camaro too, I'd think it might be viable for Year One. But I guess the market is too thin for those.

Anyway, it seems that pretty much, it's all TT II style wheels these days.

Riddler... ARE... Boss... they all have a TT II style wheel. Those wheels are nice- but c'mon... a few new styles would be great.


Years ago, it seemed I could find a nice 17"x8" / 4.5 backspace wheel with enough clearance for the brakes pretty easily. I ran ARE Mantis wheels and Torq Lites back in the day. They were super common. And cost effective. Yeah, I really don't want to spend $1k for a set of wheels- I have other things I'd rather spend the money on.

To me... this is an interesting topic because finding a good set of 255/60/15s is getting increasingly hard to find. 15s are practically dinosaurs in terms of tires.


I've seen a lot of wheels on picture threads here and on other forums. Just not a lot has jumped out at me.

Any thoughts about non- Torque Thrust II wheels?

 

[Tom Bryant]

You'r right. Our tires are getting hard to find. There is less than a half dozen makers at this point unless you want to spend the big bucks for repro originals from Coker. I know I have seen billet rally wheels on line but I can't remember who made them or what size.

Tom

 

[SVO]

It's difficult to figure out what the reproduction people will and won't offer for our cars. With '68 C3's approaching 50 years old, most people probably looking at restoring C3 cars and not modifying them. I'm surprised that some items, like the Hooker side mount headers, are still being offered for our cars. The volume of sales on those can't be all that much per year. I think that a 17" YJ8 repo wheel would be a popular number, but would it be popular enough to recover the tooling cost and make a profit? The people to approach for a 17" YJ8 wheel would be Corvette America, since they already offer the 15" YJ8 repo wheel which are being made in China. To go with the YJ8 wheels, I wish someone would offer the YJ8 lug nuts in polished stainless, as the chrome doesn't last long on either the original GM lug nuts or the current reproduction lug nuts. Chinese chrome just plain sucks.

Finding a 15" performance tire is difficult, as noted, the performance tire people have moved on to the 17" tire platform. If you think the 15" tire selection is thin, try looking for a 16" performance tire. That's really thin, but yet the 16" tire platform was the hot thing in the mid 80's. With the current move to 18" - 22" wheels on new vehicles, the 17" tire market could get to be just as thin in the future.

And for what it's worth, the BFG TA radial in P235/60-15's should be available for sometime into the future, as it's the most popular tire that BFG that offers. While not a high performance tire, at least we'll have a tire size to fall back on while complaining about the lack of tires & wheels in our desired sizes.

Perhaps it's time to retire the C3's and move up to a C5 or a C6.

 

[KANE]

SVO- interesting that you talk about the datedness of the C3.

I have 325hp / 373lbs-ft tq with a 700R4 and a 3.73 rear end. That's pretty good for a N/A small block C3.

That's nothing compared to what you get out of a C6 or C7.

But then again, I'm not looking to outcompete with a C6 or C7. Never was. Just wanted to keep the car in semi-OE appearance.

I dunno.

I think you are right about the market and the desire of parts for modifications versus restorations.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SVO]

Kane - Datedness is remembering looking at the new for '68's Corvettes sitting on the Mike Persia Chevrolet lot... in 1968.

Let us hope the Reproduction market will cater to our desires & wishes.