Wheel's wheel's wheel's.

Over the the years of owning my little red Monza Spyder,  I've run an assortment of the 13" wheel's available from the factory.  

If your familiar with these cars, you may know of the unique bolt 4" bolt circle this car uses, which limit's this cars wheel choices to basically what came from the factory.  There have been some bolt on aftermarket rim's, in "14. But I've only run these 4 different set's of stock wheel's below.

This was the first set:  These are the Factory 

"round hole" Aluminum rim's, AKA the "mirage" rim. 

These rims are made of aluminum. They are lighter than the any other factory rim and they mount the are offset about a 1/4 outboard on each side from the factory steel rim's..

Adding to the appearance in this picture, the car is equipped with 1 inch lowering spring's. 

Here' one of the few other pictures I have of these wheels on the car.  I did like them a lot, but for some reason they didn't complete the look of the car to me.  I think it's the spyder package there's just to many unusual thing's to look at.  These rim's do better to dazzle up a more plain jane model.

 In this picture I made a visit to see another

Spyder. An orange '77.  

Here in the picture I ran the factory original "Rally II" Rim's.  These rims are a 4 spoked stamped steel rim  with a Chrome Trim ring.  a little bit Porsche like, and quite a common look in the 70's.

I liked the look of these rim's. The large chrome trim ring ties in with the car's other chrome trim, but they have a little to much visual pull... the black center's match the trim, and stay subdued in the over all look of the car which is nice but this also leaves the contrasting tan interior as the odd-man-out.

During the 5 or so years (on and off) that I ran these rim's, (and still have them),  I liked that the car was in 100% factory appearance ( also back to original height springs again).  But on the down side, these rims are a bit heavier that the aluminum rim's. And being original, they've seen a lot of miles and potholes, these did't balance out as smoothly as I would like.  My final take is that these rim's are what you want to give a run of the mill Vega that sportier GT look.  They work well for that. But this car isn't the 'GT' it's the fancy-pant's 'spyder' model and the rim's could do more to cater to that theme...so on to some other rim's..  

Next: Chrome Rally II's

After wearing the last set of tires down, I had these rare Chrome Rally II's from an Oldsmobile Starfire GT.  (Chrome version not offered on monza).  So they weren't stock appearing, but they looked really good and the car got a lot of new compliment's.  On quick glance they looked like mini 5 spoke Craggar's.   I liked them, but the tires wore down and they also didn't balance that well...

The chrome look was back. And of course chrome does look good against red.

And Finally we get to what the car currently run's.  My favorite wheel of all time. What's most commonly known as a Cosworth Vega wheel.  And while these wheels were specific to the Cosworth, they were also offered as a special option in 1978 as the "styled gold" wheel.   So while not factory to my car, they at least could have been.

These wheels "Complete' the look of this car to me. They add that peculiar 70's touch I couldn't get with the other wheel's. 

I believe they compliment the car in 2 important way's...   1st. Is the spokes. They fan out like 'spider' leg's and there's 8. Perfect.  2nd. The gold color, contrasts the red in that 70's kind of way yet, ties in visually with the gold Spyder script on the door and of course the unusual-against-red tan interior.

Those effects get the rim to tie in with the rest of the vehicle.

To make the deal even sweeter, there from a low milage car, and came with an excellent like new set of expensive and impossible to find Dunlop 205 /60 13's.   I'll be sad when these are worn away!

These rim's taught me how crude my steel rims were, these ride as smooth as glass!!

I've never been happier with a set of rim's.  I can't see the car running anything else for the time being.  When the time eventually comes to replace the 13's I might then upgrade to a similar looking rim only in 14 or 15.