Disappointed in my new set of Minilites

[Greg D.]

I'll try to stay factual. They're not all that cheap, neither "mini" nor "lites" and the finish is amateurish.



I got a set of genuine new minilites in 15x6 for my wife's 69 912 which is undergoing restoration, but as my own 911T is on steel wheels at the minute (its fuchs are off to Harvey....for a long time) and steelies are heavy as hell, I figured in the meantime I'd put those on the 911 instead.

My main beef is the weight, the steel wheels with identical size 205/60 tires weight 39.5 Lbs. Ouch... The minilites come out at 38.5 ! That's 1 lb savings but that's pretty heavy still, vs the fuchs (same tire) at 34 !

The offset is definitely pushing the wheel outside of the car, it fills up the fenders for sure, but if you were to lower the car it would rub.

The finish: Honestly it's crap. The petals of the wheels don't look smooth at all. The paint was applied carelessly, it's too thick in places, and it does a crease at each spoke/petal end. From 6ft away, they look good... upclose, meh..



The above is one little example, all petals have those paint defects and roughness, a bad paint and/or prep job basically... I'll redo them myself when I get my Fuchs back. No wheel centers on my car, I got a set but they look like something I'd use to protect a rattle can of paint, not use as a center ;-(

All in all, in the last few years I've played with superlites, steelies, minilites, fake fuchs, you name it... I'd put the fake fuchs above those 3 on weight and looks, and obviously the real fuchs heads and shoulders above them all... Not-even-close.

IMO, yes fuchs are expensive, but nice things always are : Lesson learned.

[Greg D.]

I should point out the tires are all different brands, so there is some possibility of variation here, brand to brand, even same sizes... but not much... +/- 1 Lb I'd guess... They should rebrand themselves mini-heavies.

[Jens]

Greg, are these magnesium or aluminum? My old 6x15 magnesium minilites were not really super light. I forget what they weighed, but they were not featherweights like the Gas Burner Mahles.

Historically Minilites were a racing wheel, thereby focus was on performance. Being pretty was not as important as winning, but, I think in this day and age, runny, sloppy paint is inexcusable when you're paying good money. I've seen other modern Minilites that I thought had a goofy offset, too. I don't know why it's so wrong.

The car looks great though!

[Greg D.]

Pretty sure they're not magnesium. I'd say aluminum but the heavy kind ;-) I guess my point wasn't so much to complain about them, just to reiterate that I am yet to find anything better than stock wheels...

[Kris Clewell]

I'll have some for sale when I get the car home.....

[chris_seven]

It is quite important to understand what you buy with Minilite these days.

Minilites were originally made by Sterling metals who had significant experience in casting Elektron Magnesium Alloys and were based in Coventry.

The wheels were sand cast and relatively light compared to their strength and importantly their stiffness.

The sand casting technique made them very difficult to balance from time to time as the porosity that some times occurred was irregular and unevenly distributed.

The paint finish was not wonderful and as has been said they were fundamentally a competition wheel.

At some time the Birmid Group which owned Sterling Metals merged with another foundry group called Qualcast who made cast iron parts and lawn mowers.

Some parts of the group were sold off and around this time Tech-Del emerged and continued manufacture of the Magnesium wheels.

I believe it was during Tech-Del's ownership that the Minilte Sport - Aluminium Die Cast Wheel was developed. This was clearly a much cheaper wheel and also had a better surface finish than the Mag wheels. The style was slightly different but was still braodly an 8 Spoke wheel.

Unhappily Tech Del couldn't sell enough wheels to survive and I believe became insolvent and ceased trading.

When historic rallying started to become popular in the UK (late eighties - early ninties) a group of individuals bought the name Tech Del and associated trade marks from the Receiver and started remanufacturing wheels labelled as Minilites.

There were a couple of court cases with regard to the use of the name resolved in favour of the new owners of Tech Del.

At this time Tech Del was based in Somerset and had no foundry or manufacturing facilities.

The casting of wheels was subcontrated to KN Wheels in Telford who used to manufacture (and I believe they still do) a low cost replica called the Minator.

This was an aluminium wheel but was not heat treated and hence not very strong.

I bought a set of Minilite Wheels at around this time - for a Series 3 Lotus 7 and they still had KN cast into the rear.

It looked to me as if the Minator Dies had been modified to produce a wheel that looked more like a Minilite.

I have to say that the standard for finish and paint was poor and I had the new wheels stripped - re-worked and re-painted at my own expense.

The wheels currently being sold by Minilite, who are now based in Telford at the KN Foundry are sold as a 'Magnesium Style' wheel but are die cast Aluminum and are, as stated, relatively heavy. The finish doesn;'t seem to have improved much over the years.

KN Wheels now own the name Tech Del and the Trade Mark Minilite for all of the Aluminium Wheels that they produce.

The owners who revived the brand sold this name to raise the finance to start to remanufacture a range of magnesium wheels which were to be sand cast in the traditional style.

Unfortunately this mission didn't work out too well and resulted in the rights to use the Minilte Brand name for the Magnesium Wheels to yet another Preparation Specialist.

They have produced a two sizes of 911 Wheels in Magnesium - 6 x 15 and 7 x 15 and I had a set of Protoype Wheels to test out for fit and size about 3 years ago. The finish of the wheels was very good but they came to me in Black Chromate finish and unpainted.

I have been trying to buy wheels ever since but without success and I don't think many wheels have ever been produced which is very sad.

In the meantime KN continue to sell the 'Magnesium' looking Aluminium Wheel but it just isn't very good.

I eventuallyended up selling the Minilites on my Lotus 7 and replacing them with Panasports which were, in my view, much better.

[Jens]

Yeah Chris, that's what I was going to say. Great time line, and it explains a lot, thanks Chris, this is going right into my archives.

Greg, here is a shot of my first generation Minilite mags. They were lighter than Fuchs but not Mahles, but as Chris says, strong as hell and stiff. The finish is rough sand cast raw, but rang clear as a bell when tapped with a small hammer. In fact, they were as-new when I got them. This with two coats of zink chromate primer and two of old Chevy cast iron engine gray metallic enamel. The Dunlops balanced up with very little lead weight.

[Jens]

This one's for you Chris-

[Greg D.]

I like yours Jens, they are a different style apparently, your spokes are cut off towards the center and you have a flatter center portion, they look rough but if they are light, I'm fine with that. My beef with my set is that they are neither cheap, light, fit the car well, or well finished. *One* of the 3 would have been OK, *none* is a bit annoying and I cannot see a single reason to recommend those for any use. But they will go on the wife's 912 and she likely wont notice the difference, much... If anything that convinced me to try gas burners some day or stick with Fuchs and Harvey's refinishing service (talking about which, Harvey, hire/train another guy or 2, will ya? ;-)
Just joking - now my wheels will take an extra month ;-)

[John Straub]

Here's a shot of my 7" early mag wheels on my '67...fit is good.



I love them.

John