In the future when replacement wheels are needed, I plan on installing wider, tubeless, and stainless steel wires. I have only ever heard of “Dayton” which has tubeless wire wheels. There’s also MWS, which offer tubeless but they recommend running tubes in them. I recently discovered a company called “British Wire Wheels” who also has tubeless options. According to their website (or at least this dealer website) they sound like they are constructed of the same materials as “Dayton”, but will price match and beat both “Dayton” and “MWS”. Does anyone have any experience with them, or bought them before? Looking for input. Thanks!!
I have had tubeless Dayton wires for years without any problems. Much better than the original wire wheels. The Grade A alternative is Turrino in UK = https://turrinowirewheels.com/ - used on Eagle Speedster etc. Would not go cut rate on wire wheels
The wheels shown on your link are MWS wheels (formerly Dunlop) and British Wire Wheels is a MWS dealer/distributor. This is from their website: “In 2016, Classic Car Performance inked a deal with the world-famous MWS (previously known as Dunlop Wire Wheels) from the U.K. to sell their wire wheels. Under the name BritishWireWheels.com, we will be their exclusive North American distributor of Jaguar wire wheels, as well as offering wire wheels for numerous other British Cars.”
From that thread I’m assuming somebody on this forum has dealt with BritishWireWheels.com - given location I think Gtjoey would be a good bet so hopefully he’ll chime in here.
I have had three sets of MWS wheels and completed quite a few miles in them.
I have always found then to be excellent and good value. No rust flakes on the painted ones,
I have never had to put air into any and they have always been perfectly balanced.
I started off with the cheapest at the time, silver painted 6 inch wide XW474S’s. Less than £160 each in 2015. They were superb taking us all over Europe on 205 Michelin XWXs without a single issue. These are edge laced as the originals, just wider.
Then I changed to XWS5721 s in Stainless. They are 6.5 inch center laced so give the car wider shoulder and and make the spokes look recessed (below). Again they are fantastic on 205 Michelins, which are a favorite of mine, having a period looking rounded shoulder to the tyre. It was about £2,500 all in.
On my S1 I have similar center laced but silver painted 6.5 inch wheels. I decided to up the width to 215. No issues. They look a little bit “meaner”. Its about as wide as you want to go I think. No rubbing issues and no bumpstops on either.
Thanks for all of the input everyone. It’ll be a little while before I make the switch, but this is all very good advice. I’m still currently running tubed wires from MWS, maybe they are replacements from the 70s or so…?
I ordered MWS 15x6" wheels a few weeks ago. They won’t be in for at least another month. I keep thinking that I’d prefer the Dunlaps so I’d better make up my mind soon.
Who makes the Dunlaps?
Anybody put Dunlaps on a series 1 or 2 coupe? I’d like to see some photos.
Do you mean who makes Daytons? Or Dunlops? Dayton Wire Wheel Co. makes Daytons. MWS makes Dunlops. The MWS wheel is the original Dunlop design.
If you’d like photos of MWS/Dunlop, I can provide later tonight, as I just mounted tires last night on my new set of MWS wheels that I purchased a year and a half ago.
The Dunlap old style race wheels. I really like the look and frankly, wouldn’t miss having wire wheels. I’ve seen lots of photos of them on open cars but not much on coupes. I don’t think I’ve seen any on series 2 coupe.
Thanks
Looking on MWS’s website and I don’t see the Dunlop style wheel. Realm engineering has them. I emailed them to see if they sell direct to the USA or if I’ll have to go through someone here.
Bill,
What exactly is your wheel size when you say 16”? 16x6? What size tires are you running…205/65R16? I’ve found lots of options for tires in that size, but I can’t seem to find any 16x6 wheels available for an E-type.
I succumbed to Turrinos in the end. 15 x 205 Blockleys on 6.5inch rims.
They were not as expensive as I thought in the end. About the same as taking the family to Yosemite on holiday for a week or so!
I went all around the factory near Peterborough, they are a proper engineering outfit that actually spin up the rims on expensive CNC machines.
I met the owner too who is Will Tomkins. He owns Project Heaven which is a proper restoration outfit as well. They were converting G body 3x 911s to EV an doing a full restoration on a DB4 among many other interesting projects including a Ghostbusters Cadillac ambulance and a 600 bhp Ferrari 250.
He does many wheels for the high end racers at Goodwood. It is a proper business!
