This is my first rant post, and I know I’m in the minority on this, so bear with me.
A hugely popular trend in performance cars recently is black wheels. I don’t know if the reason is in homage to competition wheels, or folks wanting to give their cars that sinister “Darth Vader” look, but I don’t like them—at all. Part of it might be generational, but there’s more to it than that. Let me state my case with a few points.
As a kid with a budding interest in cars, I grew up in an age of wheel covers, and when a car had black wheels, it was probably missing its wheel covers. To this day, I see a car with black wheels, and my initial reaction is that something is missing, or that the car is unfinished. Sure, it’s my background and age shaping my opinion, but it’s not the only reason for my distaste of black wheels. There are a couple of very good reasons from a design point of view.
Obviously, wheels are the most important external feature of a car, and because of that, they are critical to the design language of a car. When wheels are black, they recede, when they should be emphasized to communicate that transfer of power from machine to road. The other design problem with black wheels is that black hides the shape of the wheel. The definition of the spokes, transition to the hub, and rim lip, are all lost on a black wheel.
Are their exceptions? Of course! I’ve seen some sports and exotic cars with a very competition-centric look that have amazing, almost neon paint jobs, and the black wheels are a nice contrast and help break up the color. Another exception is a nice, clean set of black Fuchs wheels on a ’70s or ’80s vintage Porsche 911. That five spoke look with a bright lip just looks so cool. It’s how to do a black wheel right, at least in my opinion.
