Watanabe Millennium Falcon

[26th-Z]

Sorry,

That's the steering wheel for Her Majesty. The original idea was to simply change out a few parts, but now that Princess 27 has arrived, I can do one car each way - stock and street modified. Here are the wheels - 14x6 - and I'm thinking about some 205 - 215 Toyos. I'm going to have the centers repainted charcoal to match the grill and valance - the hubcap look!

[Alfadog]

Awesome!!! I think the pewter beige-ish colour would look great against green. But so would dark grey :devious: It's awesome to see more Watanabes... I think they will look superb on your car. Good choice Chris!! Two thumbs up!!

[26th-Z]

Hey thanks!

I like the color and agree they may look good with the green. I also like that dark wheel Jap look - sort of sinister. May have to experiment with it. I prefered this spoke as it engages the rim inside the lip rather than the other type where the spoke laps over the rim. I just thought it looked more period correct. I picked the size for the same reason and they should appear similar to the slots in my avatar.

[v12horse]

Those are really nice Chris. Do you have the old aluminum center caps? I would like to find a set of those, but I am going to get the wheels on the car first.

I wanted my car to look mostly stock, but I fell in love with the dish of my wheels. I do agree that Watanabe's look more period with the spokes inside the rim. By the way, paint your wheels all gunmetal. Lachlan's look crazy beautiful, but all gunmetal and they will look like Z432 wheels. Teehee. I know you are into those. No matter how you paint them they are going to look suberb- natural looks really nice as well. One last question Chris, do your wheel lips have little ridges as if they were machined?

Lachlan, I too am glad that Watanabe wheels are getting more popular. They seem to be really popular with the 510 and AE86 crowd here in the US.

Ben

p.s. The slots on Her Majesty's 26th look like they are 7j wide. Am I mistaken?

[26th-Z]

Thanks for the compliments, Ben.

The spun aluminum slots on Her Majesty are 14x6s that Rob put on the car about a year after he bought her. They have been on her since I can ever remember. They say "Japan" inside the castings, but other than that, I know little more about them. They are old, have a bunch of curb rash, and when I started the restoration, wheel reconditioning was in the budget.

Ok, so I thought you knew I had the Watanabes.

This all started when I decided I really wanted American Racing Libres and bought a set from a junk yard in Sanford, Florida. The guy took these nasty old dirty, dusty Libres off the shelf; still with old tires mounted - $400. When I got the tires off and the wheels cleaned, I discovered they weren't a matching set. The junk yard gladly took the cleaned up wheels back and refunded my $400. About two weeks later, I wrote to an add on Zcar.com for a set in N.C. - $350. This was when I met the lovely Jim Edwards who is listed all over the net and I have filed fraud charges against. I'll never see that money again. During that time, Alan sold a set of his Watanabes and made a crack at my Libres falling out of style and wouldn't I rather have his Wats.

Last winter, I saw a set listed on eBay. I took the add to a car club meet at ZFever in Tampa and talked to Doug about them concerning offset and we misjudged the deal. I think they sold for $700 or so. With the description and pictures, I struck up a conversation with Alan who taught me more about Watanabe wheels than I could absorb. Then, one early Sunday morning, I saw the wheels I bought posted on eBay. They were exaclty what I was looking for. When they arrived, I was talking to Alan who turned me on to Japanese Yahoo auctions for lug nuts and wheel caps, and I was able to find new lug nuts, new wheel caps (plastic), and the Falcon sticker about a month later.

The Watanabes are used, of course, but they are in real nice condition. Very minor curb rash and they have a nice ring to them when you ding. The insides are sealed with some sort of white paint. I should weigh them.

[v12horse]

Hey Chris, I knew you had the wheels. I was just commenting on them again.

Ben

p.s. Great choice chris. 400 was a great deal.