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As always, there's been a lot of thought that goes into the wheel and tyre combination for this car. Well actually, that's a partial lie! The wheels and tyres that are currently on it were originally destined for my Type 181. As that project got 'temporarily' abandoned, the wheels became the perfect choice for this Bug. So the current choice is a set of 4.5J x 15" Porsche 356C steels on the front, and 5.5J x 15" Porsche 944 Spacesaver steels on the rear. They are running Kumho KH11 165/50 and 195/65 tyres respectively. Kumho might not be everyone's first choice, but I did a lot of research into them. The KH11 are a good, semi-soft compound, which gives good grip, without wearing too fast (not that they'll do many miles!) The 165s are perfect for the 4.5J wheels, and sit nice and square on the rim. I find that much more attractive than the usual 145 width tyre selection. I got the steels a few years ago now. The 4.5s are pretty hard to come by as they were only used on the Porsche 356C in 5x130 PCD. I actually managed to get six of them over the years, but sold three off to friends over the years. I wanted to keep three so that I could use one as a spare, in the original location. I always wanted them to be black - I've got a thing about black steels - but didn't just want them to look like steel wheels finished with a rattle can. I guess my goal was to make them look factory finish. To do this, I got them blast cleaned, vapour cleaned and powder coated in a semi-gloss black. The finished article looks pretty good, if you ask me! 
They've now got the tyres fitted, and are actually on the car. I keep forgetting to take my camera to the unit, but I'll get some pictures soon. Stupidly, before I tried the steels on the car, I bought another set of wheels that I wanted. A set of 16" Fuchs (6J and 7J), along with 16 new black Porsche alloy nuts and 4 genuine Porsche locking nuts to match. I'm not sure that I'll run them now, as the 7Js will require widened rear wings, with stock long axles. I'll decide at some point though.... |
