I recently picked up a set of stock 15" "Rockets" for winter use:


As I've now painted three sets of wheels with Duplicolor's Wheel Coating, I've grown comfortable with doing a set in my garage with good results. I'm trying to decide between flat black or bronze or graphite for these on my PW/B. I've got black on the Mini now (and on my Firehawk, and on my recently sold GTO), so the bronze or graphite might be a nice change of pace, but I'm just not sure...

I like black, but typically with a polished lip. And that would be difficult to accomplish on these wheels... Flat black all over just looks a little too "unfinished" for me at times.

I did graphite for the stock wheels on my GTO for last winter, and that sometimes just ends up looking like a silver wheel that's accumulated a few weeks worth of brake dust.

As for bronze, I really can't decide if it looks a bit off or if it works with the PW/B combination. It would certainly be different, as there aren't many that run bronze wheels...

The following pics are just for helping to picture how my car might end up looking with either color combo:








So, please tell me if any one color makes you go "bleah!" or "yeah!". Ultimately, I know it's my decision and other's opinions don't matter as long as I like it. But I'm really on the fence right now as to which one to go with.

Or perhaps the ultimate solution is to have one in each color (silver, black, graphite, bronze) on each corner...

 

As someone who is about to get a PW and is jones'n for black wheels, I say black! I think black on PW just looks so right. I understand the concern about finish, but I think PW can pull the flat off.

I'm interested in the Duplicolor painting. Any problems that you've run into? Any tips?

 

i personally dont like the flat black look. sometimes it looks like you dont have any rims.
i just like being able to see the rims clearly. flat black will just look like any 'ol rim. BUT that's just me.
i'd go with graphite.
gold doesnt look too bad either. i think it would look nice if you got gold rims and a gold stripe.

but i'd go with graphite.

 

Bleah on the bronze. There needs to be something to echo the color. They would look good on a Sparkling Silver (Champagne color) car, but not PW/B.

IMO, if you are going to do dark wheels you need some accent on them. Either a polished rim, or "Time Attack" color. Overwise, the wheel wells just become dark pits.

 

I'd say graphite - if it's dark enough, otherwise black. If it's a really light graphite, then yeah, it might just look like dirty silver.

Sure you don't want to just mask the rims and paint the spokes?

 

This is how the graphite turned out on my GTO..Since the spoke on the Rocket isn't a straight edge near the lip, I'm hesitant to tape it off and have an uneven line. But that's the look I'd prefer (black spokes with the silver lip), event though I'm more at ease with uniformly painting the entire wheel.

 

Yeah, the color of the GTO's wheels would be good.

This is the look I was thinking of for just painting the spokes:



Obviously graphite instead of orange in your case. You could also mask of just the rim edge of the Rockets and leave that silver. There appears to be a sharp edge all the way around the wheel to mask to.

 

I like my bronze ones (first pic in first post) because they kinda blend in with the car. The shot I posted is in direct sun, which is when they look bright and metallic. Any other time they don't stand out at all. Black or graphite wheels would work the same way, but look racier. PW isn't a very racy color, though, so I'd stick with bronze.

Note that the Panasports don't have centercaps like your MINI wheels do. That probably isn't an issue if you're painting, but wouldn't work for powdercoating since you can't powdercoat the plastic caps.