Do all cars look worse with black wheels?

[MissChief]

Doing one of my usual 'if only I won the Lottery..' trawls through the classifieds I've looked at lots of different cars from all makes and manufacturers, from E46 M3's through to Ferrari's, AMG's, TVR's etc and I have come to a conclusion. In my opinion anyway, no car is improved by painting the wheels black. It seems to be fairly common on E46 M3's for some reason but when I look at them the wheel design just seems lost because the wheel is the same colour as the tyre. In many pictures you can't even tell what sort of sheels they have. You may as well have a flat plate or steelies. Silver is still best, although white steelies suit smaller lightweight cars like Nova SR's, 106 Rallye's or on occasion cars developed as Rally cars can suit white wheels but black wheels? Awful.

Now try and sway me if you can by posting a picture.

[Stevoox]

Perhaps yours is aimed at cars whereby the wheel has been redone in black rather than being black from factory?

Anywho... I (personally) think the black wheels (from factory) look great on mine against the other black parts aswell as against the yellow paint



Also in the pic is a clio 200 Silverstone - again, black wheel from factory but i think they go well against the silver paint.

[jimmyt1202]

To some degree I do agree with you, I think black wheels on some plain colours (black/grey/silver) does look a bit of an afterthought, however I do think that silver wheels on my car would just look silly and spoil the overall look of it

[JDMDrifter]

Certain colour schemes on cars demand black wheels, the above is a case in point. However a c63/m3/rs audi always looks better with a sliver wheel.

[sealtt]

Sports cars can suit them, luxury cars don't. Really don't like people putting them on Range Rovers. Can look great on some Ferrari, Lambo and Porsche models though.

[MissChief]

Steevox the yellow helps (and I really like Renault Liquid yellow) but I still think it would look better with silver wheels.

Same goes for the Leon. The wheel design and style seems lost in the picture. It does seem to work slightly better for bright or citrus colours but I'm still to be swayed.

[parabolica]

The only things I don't like about 100% black wheels are a) your tyres start to look grubby and messy (especially in the winter time when salt and water takes the shine for them; the issue is magnafied by the black paint on the wheels) and b) you often can't see the design clearly, unless they are very open-spoked wheels.

Gunmetal for the win; looks much better imo.

[kambites]

Personally, I think silver wheels (or indeed silver anything else) look rubbish on just about all modern cars - it's just tasteless bling, no different to chrome wraps. I'd take black over silver on almost anything.

Each to their own, though.

[Stevoox]

MissChief said:

Steevox the yellow helps (and I really like Renault Liquid yellow) but I still think it would look better with silver wheels.

Same goes for the Leon. The wheel design and style seems lost in the picture. It does seem to work slightly better for bright or citrus colours but I'm still to be swayed.

I personally think Silver would look out of place. The 'colour scheme' of the car is yellow & black with some red accents (calipers, stickers etc). Silver wheels i'd think would then just be a bit out of place. All personal preference though

But on some cases i certainly agree with you. Saw an audi R8 the other day with the 5 spoke wheels re-done in black - just didnt think it looked too good. Alot depends on the car and colour of the car.

[JuniorD]

In the early - mid 90s there was a short TV series on car design. I've tried to find it on youtube with no success.

In one part the legendary Leonardo Fioravanti explained that black wheels simply look st. Who is to question a guy of his standing in such matters?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Fioravanti_(...

[Some Gump]

IMO every car on this thread would look better with silver wheels, and in general, I think of black wheels as gash - but there can be exceptions.

However, I'm one of those people who really dislike having black roofs, and think that anyone ordering an Aston with the A pillars, wingmirrors and a stripe round the grille in red / yellow should be shot. You might want to ignore my opinion in it's entirety - it's your car after all =)

[x111tom]

The answer is yes!

[Stevoox]

Some Gump said:

IMO every car on this thread would look better with silver wheels, and in general, I think of black wheels as gash - but there can be exceptions.

However, I'm one of those people who really dislike having black roofs, and think that anyone ordering an Aston with the A pillars, wingmirrors and a stripe round the grille in red / yellow should be shot. You might want to ignore my opinion in it's entirety - it's your car after all =)

You would hate the pic i posted above then as the car has a black roof aswell as wheels

As personal preference though

[rallycross]

I think in most cases yes, maybe its because the tyres are black and the definition between wheel and tyre is lost to the eye?

When I refurbed my S2000 alloys I went for a v dark grey colour and it looked bad, my EvO 9GT came with black alloys and when I swapped it back to standard silver alloys and it looked so much nicer.

[0llie]

My Fiesta had black wheels from the factory



I did like them, but kept thinking they would look better in anthracite. I was pleased to find one with clear glass, I think the privacy glass would have been black overload!

Missing this car now

[RobM77]

Stevoox said:

As personal preference though

Ooo.. there's no room for that on Pistonheads!

[Some Gump]

Stevoox said:

You would hate the pic i posted above then as the car has a black roof aswell as wheels

As personal preference though

You're right - a pearl yellow with black bits R26 is about as "un-gump" as you can get. I'm glad you like it though - if we all drive silver Golfs, the world would be a pretty boring place.

PS - I'm also a massive hypocrite, I saw a car in pretty much exactly this spec on the high street on Sunday, and thought it looked uber cool.



Silver wheels though - much better =)

[luckystrike]

The lack of detail between the tyre and wheel is the main thing that puts me off black wheels from a design point of view. Black centres and/or spokes can work depending on the car but there needs to be some form of break between the wheel and tyre - the clio above just gets away with the red rim tape/lip detail.

Wheel design/crassness aside, these look significantly better than they would if they were all black:



However, this vehicle highlights more of a personal problem I have with black wheels on black cars - it always seems to come across a bit too Jason Statham 'hard man', esp. when any exterior trim that can be removed has inevitably been painted black or carbon wrapped as well. It's just lazy styling, like the 'alternative' girl who wears black lipstick and fingernail polish to seem mysterious.

[MLH]

Ive got black wheels on an all black car. I think silver wheels would have looked completely out of place on it.

[GetCarter]