Attractive. But do we miss wire wheels?
The wire wheel is a device from another era. Invented early in the 19th Century, the first successful automotive wheels were produced by Rudge-Whitworth of Coventry about 100 years later.
In 1922 the Italian firm Borrani started making Rudge-Whitworths under licence but, in time, its own name became as well-known. Once the sports car default, by the mid Sixties the alloy wheel was in its ascendancy and the wire wheel was beginning to look like an anachronism. There were still certain Sixties designs that suited wires, both a Series one Jaguar XJ and a modernist Series 1 Rover P6 look surprisingly well on wires but, by the end of the decade, even stalwart Borrani customer Ferrari has switched mainly to alloys. Continue reading “Theme : Wheels – Wires”
Driven To Write 