At the dawn of the second half of the 20th century half the population of the USA lived in rural America and street racing had yet to even be named. Racing was something that occurred on tracks or backroads - not on city streets. On the west coast a new method of racing was being invented - a way to race within the confines of an urban environment. If you want an object lesson in how serving a niche within an American subculture is a great business model, look no further than the birth of American Racing custom wheels. Get American Racing Custom Wheels.
Cars were customized in home garages to perform in ways that original equipment manufacturers never intended. Machines took on mutated shapes that ranged from the muscular profile of a chopped Mercury to the spidery efficiency of the early dragsters. In 1956 three of those early innovators joined forces to design and build after-market car wheels for street racing.
Between them, these two invented the mag wheel. Using spoked magnesium wheels with a strength to weight ratio unheard of in any other automobile wheel format, they revolutionized drag racing, first, and American car wheel design second.
In San Francisco machine shop owner Jim Ellison and his partner, dragster driver and designer Romeo Palamides, were looking for a new kind of wheel - a wheel that took advantage of the new strong but light metals being developed for use in airplane design. In 1954 they developed the first magnesium wheel for an automobile. The wheels were so stylish the Funny Car crowd wanted them and so efficient in terms of weight to strength that the drag and street racing crowds wanted them. Two years later the partners, along with design engineer Tom Griffith started the after-market wheel and car accessory business, a business model that has flourished ever since.
The radical shape of the spokes (’tapered parabolic’ in car design lingo) revolutionized wheel design. This breakthrough has long become standard in the industry, but American Wheel is still the company that the after-market industry and mainstream auto makers as well look to for the evolution of the automobile wheel.
American Racing custom wheels have since ascended into that pantheon where a product becomes a symbol for a life style: think Harley, Blackberry or Royal Dolton. Certain American Racing wheels are prized by collectors - most especially early Sixties Torq Thrust. Well, maybe not m-o-s-t especially. The absolute most valuable American Racing wheel is a broken Vector model owned by a collector in Sylmar, California, according to the American Racing website.
American Racing custom wheels have become pop culture icons. They have evolved with the changes in car tastes and styles over the years and continue to lead the after-market car wheel segment as they have for over half of a century.
All of the 340 General Lees that Warner Brothers Studio had built during the 7 seasons of The Dukes of Hazzard TV series had Vector wheels. 321 of those vehicles crashed doing the spectacular, pre-CGI stunt jumps the series was famous for. One of those jumps resulted in a broken American Racing SUV Custom Wheels wheel. That’s one broken American Racing Custom Wheels out of 1,284 stunt jumps that resulted in a totaled vehicle. They’re the best custom wheels.
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