We pay tribute to the three-spoke rims. Sometimes they were pretty cool, often very wrong.
Last week there was a special Mercedes on the Continental stand at Essen. It was a Brabus SL 750 Bodo Buschmann Edition, to the founder of it German company to honor. The basis of the car is the SL63 AMG, but with improved turbos and a power of 750 hp. How could it be different. What stood out most were the rims.
Brabus had opted for three-spoke rims. And anyone who lived in the ’90s knows that the three-spoke is truly the ultimate form of error. It just doesn’t work. You regularly saw it on an incorrectly tuned Opel Tigra or Toyota Paseo. They were striking and you immediately made a statement. In addition, there are more fashion phenomena that were still fashionable at the time, but are now fashionable not done are.
Of course, we can say “Three-spoke wheels are ugly” and leave it at that, but let’s look at some examples of cars with three-spoke wheels. Because some of them were pretty cool. Of course you can express your own opinion in the comments!
Saab 900 Turbo
1984
We could fill this article with Saabs. Saab is the king when it comes to the three-spoke rim. Because somehow they always get away with it. Perhaps it is because Saabs are inherently stubborn. On the 900 Turbo they were great rims. And on the 9000 CSE they were perhaps even better. The rim design continued to evolve into the 900 and 9-3’s. Special mention for the first series of 9-5 Aero rims. They still remain very cool:
In short, if there is a brand that is king of three-spoke rims, it is Saab!
Range Rover
1981
Another car that can get away with three-spoke wheels is the original Range Rover. For the Range Rover, the three-spoke rim also had another advantage: if you had been scrubbing off-road, you could easily clean them with a high-pressure washer. It was also cool that in some cases they were spray-painted in color. It looked extremely good, especially with a dark blue one.
Dodge Viper (SR-I)
1992
Perhaps one of the cars that made three-spoke wheels popular again in the tuning industry. In the case of the Dodge Viper, it is not even a ‘rim that looks quite good’, but it is part of the overwhelming visual impression that the car leaves behind. Because the concept had ‘normal’ rims and the later SR-IIs were also less extreme. In this case, rims really made the car.
See, this was one of the rims that was considered:
Then this is much nicer:
Read more: Check out our special on the Dodge Viper RT/10 (SR-1) here.
Smart Crossblade
2002
Just like Saab, Smart has a long history when it comes to three-spoke rims. There is another reason for this, besides the fact that both brands were stubborn. The original Smarts have three bolts per rim. Then a three-spoke rim is quite obvious from a design point of view. Whether you had the City Coupé, Roadster, Roadster Coupé or this special Crossblade, they were all available with three-spoke rims.
Ford Mustang Mustang Cobra R
1993
Everyone calls this the SN-95 rim, but we first saw the three-spoke design of this rim on the previous generation Ford Mustang Cobra R (the Fox body). Now we can nitpick, because strictly speaking they are six-spoke rims in a kind of 3×2 design.
For the Mustang Cobra R (the ultimate Mustang with zero options and the biggest engine), the rim was black with a chrome cap on it. The design followed the generation that followed and Ford also had some three-spoke design wheels on offer.
The idea of the three-spoke rims evolved into the SN-95 and not even with one wheel design, because there was a complete arsenal of different wheels.
Opel Corsa GSI (A)
1988
This is another variation on the three-spoke rim. Things usually go wrong with three-spoke rims if they are very massive (or not massive enough). The Opel Corsa had a special variant, at least if you paid for it. Opel simply gave you steel rims as standard.
BMW E39 Style 38
1995
Yes, even BMW has taken the plunge. It was not an unqualified success. The Styling 38 was available on the 3 Series (E36), 5 Series (E39) and the BMW Z3 (E36/6). Apart from the gap in the spokes, the Styling 38 most resembled a three-spoke wheel that everyone thought was so horrible (or cool) in the ’90s. Admittedly, on the E39 you could have it on the sedan as a wideset (17×8 front and 17×9 rear) and that looks pretty cool in a strange way.
Ford Fiesta RS Turbo
1990
A slightly less successful wheel. Sorry. The car wasn’t great either. The Fiesta RS Turbo did not come from the period when Ford made very nice driving cars. Trend followers instead of trendsetters: that’s why the car also had three-spoke rims. After 2 years this model was replaced by the RS1800. It no longer had three-spoke rims.
Brabus
1992
Of course we also have to mention Brabus. After all, it is the reason why we started writing this article at the Autoblog editorial office. Brabus had ultra-bad wheels with three spokes in the early 1990s. Look, here they are standing under a C-Class:
But you could also get them on an SL. Then they were a size bigger:
At the Essen Motor Show the wheels were black. Was that possible in the past? Yep, look, here they are black and two-piece:
So this was what Brabus paid tribute to.
R5 Alpine
1976
We readily admit, this is a bit of cheating. Not because it would actually be a four-spoke wheel (it isn’t), but because it is more of a three-hole than a three-spoke wheel. Connoisseurs will note that the Renault 5 Alpine was unveiled a few months earlier than the Golf GTI and that is correct. However, the Simca 1100 Ti had already been around for two years, so that was the first hot hatch. But that Simca did not have a three-spoke
Alfa Romeo Mito (955)
2008
18 inches on an Alfa Romeo Mito. That can never fit, can it? Yes certainly! And Alfa Romeo simply sold them at the dealer. It is a variant of the three-spoke rim, because it is actually a six-spoke with three groups of two spokes. By the way, you could also get them in 17 inches. Now the Competizione rims were the nicest for this car, but a stubborn rim design on a stubborn car is always nice.
Suzuki Jimny
1998
When you think of a three-spoke wheel on a Suzuki, you quickly think of the GSX-R motorcycle, but you could also get cars with it. In this case we will focus on the brand’s 4×4s for a moment. Suzuki is one of the few brands that continued to supply this rim type even after the turn of the millennium. The Suzuki Jimny did not reach 100 km/h in 3.2 seconds and did not reach a top speed of 315 km/h.
Mazda RX7 (SA)
1978
Just like with the Renault, you may wonder whether it is a three-hole or three-spoke rim. Of course we will take this Mazda with us for a while. The design of the Mazda RX-7 was a mishmash of what other brands were making at the time. However, the technology (the use of a rotary engine) was unique and the wheels fitted in seamlessly. In the distance, the shape resembled a rotating disk. Great detail that Mazda only started applying to many elements with the RX-8, except the wheels.
Hirsch Saab 9-3
2004
We start with Saab and end with it. Yes, we have already seen a load of Saabs, but we really have to mention Hirsch. Hirsch was a Swiss Saab tuner (nowadays they do Mercedes). Special creations were made here. Under GM’s direction, Saab could only do so much.
At Hirsch they realized that the customers had a lot of money (all highly educated, because they drove a Saab) and sufficient opportunities for improvement. Their 19 inch wheel for the 9-3 type 2 was epic: it was reminiscent of the three-spoke rims of yesteryear.
This was my presentation! Until next week!
This article Three-spoke rims: these cars just had them first appeared on Autoblog.nl.
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