Techno Phantom by Speed Star Wheel

Another set of these wheels has come up for sale in Japan, fitted beautifully on this Datsun Bluebird 510. Immaculate car with a very clean set of original 14x6.5 Techno Phantom.

Remarkably pristine and complete with centre caps. I'm even more surprised at this set than any other three-piece Techno Phantom. This is why.

Rather than the old Speed Star Wheel stickers that only show the size, and sometimes the 'wheel family' sticker, this wheel has the newer (kind of) inner barrel sticker and no stickers of Hayashi at all. Surely the back of the face is stamped with Hayashi and Techno Phantom as they all are but I've never seen this sticker on this wheel before. Learn something new every day.

Team SSR, made by ?

This is a wheel I've seen come up a few times on Yahoo Japan but I've never really been able to have a proper look at it due to for sale images are usually taken very badly. This set has a few pretty specific photos of the wheel close up.

Very unique two-piece welded tri -spokes, and bright coloured stickers on the face and lip. Very unique indeed..

In a size of 15... wait. This isn't how SSR stamps their wheels. SSR has inner barrel stickers. Is this made by SSR?

SSR centre caps, SSR stickers on the lips, SSR stamped on the edge of the centre, SSR valve caps, but the sticker in the inner barrel is also not one of SSR's (if anyone has seen it before please let me know!) and the size stamp is different. I guess the centre was made by SSR but the two-piece construction wasn't in Speed Star's capabilities at the time the wheel was made. Finding out who made which wheels always intrigued me but seeing manufacturers make wheels for other companies is even more interesting to me.

The Jilba Family.

This is the wheel that most people think of when they think 'Jilba', but there are actually quite a few different designs of the Jilba name. Quite a popular wheel choice for those old school cool cars due to being available in some very wide sizes. Sure, this wheel marked only as Jilba Racing is probably the more popular and common variant, but there are some other gems who have a unique design that hold the name. Below is one that isn't so different but is noticeable enough.

Front mounted instead of sandwich and a few more bolts to add, I've only ever seen these in 13" but not often in these sizes. In 13x8 -2 these have quite a bit of lip similar to the previous Jilba. They do come in very thin widths with high offsets as well, possibly to suit front wheel drive applications.

Smaller width, higher offset, and 4x100 to boot. In the famous red and a little bit more colourful due to being face mounted, they're a little more out there than the previous Jilba wheel. Other than this familiar design, there were a couple of other variants that kept the name but threw away this eight-spoke-star trend.

The Jilba Racing Fin. In 12x5 +37 and 4x110 stud pattern, this was destined for a small Daihatsu. Very similar design to the EX-C Fin but without the collar mounting holes and twist-on centre cap. I'm unsure of whether these came in any larger diameters or what sizes were avaiable but I picked up this pair just because I'd never seen them before.

Very unique colour combination on this lettering also. But wait, there's more!

This small disc-like wheel is the Jilba R10. R10 because it's 10 inches big! Very small but a very cool design. Unlike the Hoshino Impul, this wheel features tiny slots near the flange to let some air feed through as well. This is another pair I picked up but I've seen a couple sets of these go through Yahoo Auctions a few times.

There is also another Jilba disc-style wheel available in 15" from what I've seen which has the Jilba engraving on the face but loses the R10. Another one of SSR's not-so-common wheels.

The Watanabe Family

Watanabe is widely known for their variety of sizes and race-look (probably due to a lot of AE86's having them fitted.) Above is the original RS Watanabe. A simple yet attractive design that grew famous and is now still a very popular wheel. The three-piece version was made by SSR and was called the RS8 and the centres were stamped with the Watanabe logo, just like the original one piece version. Here is a picture of the SSR RS8 showing the stamp I am talking about.

There seemed to be just the one variant of the three-piece RS8 but after a bit of searching and seeing one set priced a lot higher than the other sets of similar size I wanted to inspect to see why. At closer inspection I noticed a few words near some of the wheel bolts.

The 'EIGHT II' isn't that noticeable (for those of you who can't see it, it's at the top of the picture,) but it's possibly the only difference compared to the original RS8 other than the centre cap and the bolts.

I'm not entirely sure what the differences were between the RS8-II and the original RS8 was. Maybe a difference in weight, maybe they were available in different sizes or even just a later model and adopted a variation to the name? There are a lot of copies of this particular design but these wheels by SSR seem to be the only models that have been licensed by Watanabe. This next set is something completely unique.

This might not be part of the Watanabe family but it certainly does look like it. The same number of banana-like spokes and the text on the lugnut cover gives a great hint that it is another variant of the famous style. Though the original RS8 does come in 17" diameters and in these widths, I'd never seen a set in 17" with a reverse lip. I can't seem to translate what the inner barrel sticker says so if someone could help me there that'd be great!