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Minilites, superlites differant wheels.


Gaz

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Can someone explain the diff between superlites, minilites and all the others out there similar?

What are these?

37436931fullbq8.jpg

And what are these?

38794304fullhb2.jpg

The spokes are a bit differant and the dish is.

What are Watanabes also?

Chur

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Minilite's are the original English made type of this wheel, these were originally probably made for Mini's back in the 60's ...hence Minilite.

They eventually were "adopted" for most of the British Works cars of the 60's and 70's. I think the company went broke in the mid 70s, hence the wheels disappeared for a while....but they are now back because of the demand for period wheels on restorations.

I'm sure that Minilites have a high Magnesium content...hence they are very lightweight.

Superlites are a copy Minilite, made by Performance Wheels (in South Africa?). These are normal Aluminium Alloy wheels.

There have been a number of "copy" Minilite wheels.

In NZ, Ward Wheels in Palmerston North had some that they sold in the 70s and 80's and their moulds were eventually sold to other parties. I think Fraser cars got the 14 inch moulds. ROH have built a similar wheel as well.

Watanabe wheels are slightly different in design to the Minilites, probably due to the fact that they were sold at the same time as the Minilites, and they wanted to avoid Copyright infrigments.

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There are also Konig Rewinds that are recent wheels in the same style

I believe that the Japanese would have copied Superlites? Also, Minilites are Superlites for Minis I believe so come in smaller sizes and offset to suit Fwd.

there's huge debates on whether watanabe's or minilites came out first, not an easy question to answer this many years later. i'd go the watanabe's myself, love the 3 piece wheels.

cheers

Matt

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Ive just been looking at the same thing and these are the prices ive got.

Superlites from Manukau Auto& tyre centre

15x8 $327 each

16x7 $369 each

minilites from Neil orport which they would ship from england

15x8 $600 each + shipping

so if you want minilites its best to get them from England (burton power) and get them to ship to you.

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^^^ Wish youd told that to my mate before he just hit buy now of $800 on the deep dish ones in the pic I posted. Mind you, they are new and free shipping. Still, thats only $200 each.. not bad

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