For those of you who like this sort of thing, I spotted this on a Facebook page. Force Racing Wheels have started to produce a 13x5 Elan knock-on wheel for standard fitment.
Homage has been paid to the original Hickman designed wheel, with Lotus emblem shaped cut-outs on the inner part.
They do follow the original beautiful steel wheel design.
How would You do an alloy ?
They also sort of remind me of my Aero wheels from my SAAB. So to me a added bonus, I suspect they help cool brakes. Their Turbo or Nutter would be nice to see rendered too.
Are they not a 2 piece?
What are the other alloy wheel options, nothing new in years. Also, (again for me) nothing looks perfect on a Elan but the original. I would guess if we see these on some different coloured cars (&+2), silver, gold, heaven-forbid blue, yellow they would/could look the part. Also, likely with some shinny C/V shafts inboard, or some fancy racing bonnet catch thing.
TireRack has the ability to show rims on your choice of car in your colour. Someone has time to fix Force’s site to allow this, or do some digital photo editing…
What did people say when MiniLite, Pana, Wolf came on the scene? If they didn’t, and they did now…
They look pretty nasty. I have a feeling force wheels had a reputation for not lasting very well.
Personally if I were looking to fit a very expensive alloy that looks like the lotus steel I’d get the image elan wheels. Much rather have a repro steel like sue miller used to be able to supply though.
I’d challenge you to notice the difference between these alloys and steel from over 3 feet away. Its just the thickness inside the holes that gives the game away.
I’m not crazy about them as shown -with neither car nor tyre attached- and I’m not a fan of the look of fasteners around the periphery either, but I’m still curious to see what these look like on a car. Not that I want them, just curious.
Now somebody may want to consider making some compatible wheels in other rim-sizes if 13" tyres continue to get more difficult to find, but that’s a different discussion.