Looking for wheels I noticed Don states he does not like the wheels from “Specialty Wheels” due to balancing issues.
I found that “Wheel Vintiques” has the 67/8 wheels listed on their site. They claim they are “Proudly US made”.
Are these different than the ones offered by Don?
For what it’s worth, I’ve had a set of Specialty Wheels reproduction Cougar wheels on my '68 since 1995 and have never had an issue with them.
Your wheels were made on Oregon. The owner passed away about 10 years ago and the company got sold and moved. The new owner is not as concerned with quality.
I bought a set of Magnum 500’s from Cooker Tires in TN that worked great for me/never an issue with balancing or the general appearance of the rims/quality of the plating. They do offer a repro of the specialty wheel 67-68 and 69-70, but I cannot say if they are any good (I wanted an 8" wide @ 14" diameter for the rear so I went with the Magnums instead)…
WCCC also has them, but I cannot say how they might stand up. Being on the East Coast - Cooker was much closer to me (shipping).
Just an FYI for anyone in the future who might go searching for this company. It is actually Coker, not Cooker.
Randy Goodling
CCOA #95
I may be mistaken, but I believe that, regardless of who’s selling them, all these wheels are manufactured by Specialty Wheels. They were in short supply when I bought the set for B3Cat. No one had them, then everyone did. I ended up getting them from WCCC.
BTW, my set has started to show surface rust, so they will eventually need to be replaced. For now, we’re able to knock it back enough to keep it from being noticeable.
Specialty Wheels was bought out by Wheels Vintiques after the owner of SW passed away, hence the decline in quality control. And yes the WV is the only manufacturer of the styled steel wheels. I hope they improve, as I’ll probably want to go to the original style wheels at some point. For now I’m enjoying the aluminum Legendary Series wheels from Scott Drake.