![How to Make a Sleeper Car [Includes Build Costs]](https://low-offset.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/how-to-make-a-sleeper-car-200x110.jpg)
When it comes to modified cars, performance upgrades aren’t everything. They’re very important, yes, but what’s the point of having an all-out build if it doesn’t reflect your personality a little bit?
There are many different aesthetic mods you can go for to transform the look of your car, but one of the easiest ways to do that is with a set of new wheels.
These days, it’s easy to get lost when choosing new rims, as there are countless brands and countless types of wheels on the market, for different purposes.
If you’re struggling with choosing new wheels for your build, we’ve got you covered.
In this article, we’ll have a look at the best wheel brands for your car. No matter what sort of look you’re going for, you’ll find something that fits your style.
The Benefits of Aftermarket Wheels
The benefits of aftermarket rims are a little more trivial than what you see with coilovers or sway bars, but they do still bring a few.
Alongside improving and changing the look of your car, installing aftermarket wheels allows you to retain your OEM wheels, which is useful if you plan to sell your car in the future.
Undoubtedly the biggest benefit is lowering the car’s unsprung mass, which means that the weight of the car’s components that the suspension system doesn’t support decreases.
This means the suspension itself can be more reactive to changes in the road surface, giving you a better ride and improving your handling.
That said, there are many things to take into account when looking at aftermarket wheels, including price, quality, sizing, and the look.
To make it simpler for you, we’ve organized our top picks for the best rim brands into a few different subcategories, based on one key aspect: value proposition.
Best Value Aftermarket Rims
When it comes to buying authentic, non-replica wheels, the barrier to entry is typically high, with prices soaring anywhere from 3 to 4 digits.
But that doesn’t have to be the case; you don’t have to burn a hole in your pocket to get your hands on a set of quality rims. Below we’ve listed some of the best value rim manufacturers that you should consider.
Enkei
A stalwart in the world of aftermarket rims, Enkei has been in the business for over 7 decades.
Alongside making a selection of rims, Enkei has supplied the automotive industry with some iconic designs, notably the 5-spoke units on the original Honda NSX-R.
Today, Enkei offers a solid lineup for on-road and off-road applications, as well as for street builds and track cars. They specialize in cast rims and use two different casting techniques.
These techniques take the best from both casting and flow-forming to create rims that rival the quality and strength of forged wheels, minus all the costs involved in making the latter.
This is reflected in the prices, as a set of four Enkei wheels should set you back a little more than $1,000, which is great if you’re trying to make your build a little more budget-focused.
Obviously, the most well-known Enkei wheels are RPF1s and RS05RRs, both of which we have seen installed on all sorts of modified cars for years, the RS05RRs on Evos especially.
There’s also the Classic family, in which the iconic ENKEI92 lives, along with the slightly flashier Performance Series.
Between their years of expertise and development, their advanced building techniques, and the fact that Enkei wheels frequently appear on custom builds, no matter the purpose of said builds, they are a fantastic bang for the buck rim, and they look pretty great too.
König
One brand that we don’t see very much anymore is König.
This German wheel manufacturer has been in the business for 40 years, and despite its seemingly low pricing, König knows a thing or two about how to manufacture a good set of rims.
For one thing, you probably won’t find another brand that makes all three kinds of wheels at this price level.
Alongside regular cast wheels, König also makes flow-form and forged rims. It also has a practically endless catalog with dozens of styles to choose from, depending on your preference.
The cheapest options from König include the Main Line, and these are your standard cast wheels.
Some of the models in this line, like Rewind, Lace, and Helium have been going on for decades. Joining them are some new, rather attractive releases, including Runlite and Diverge.
The Flow Formed family is exactly what it says on the tin. They’re manufactured using flow-forming technology, applying pressure to the inner barrel after the wheel has been cast.
This family also includes some good-looking rims, like the Ultragram and the Heliogram.
Finally, König is working on an affordable line of forged wheels, though the details still haven’t been revealed at the time of writing.
You can get a solid set of König wheels for $1,000 or less, which is seriously impressive.
König’s 40 years of expertise has resulted in quality products and although we don’t see them that frequently anymore, their wheels pack great quality and surprisingly good looks at an affordable price.
The wide range of options on offer also means that König provides an excellent amount of choice when it comes to aesthetics. A lot of the rims they offer look good on euro builds, but some of them might suit JDM cars better.
Whatever the case may be for you, you have that choice. With such low pricing and a surprising price-to-quality ratio, it’s tough to beat König wheels.
3SDM
3SDM is another relative newcomer in the world of aftermarket wheels, with headquarters in the UK and a second office in California.
It was relatively unheard of until it went on to appear in three of the most recent releases of Need for Speed.
Like a lot of its competitors, 3SDM gives buyers a choice between cast and forged wheels, with 1-piece and 3-piece wheel options.
One of the most impressive selling points of 3SDM wheels is the sizing options. This is, of course, dependent on the wheel itself, but 3SDM sizes range from 13″ all the way to 24″, so it offers a size for just about everything.
It also makes motorsport wheels, but as of publishing, it still doesn’t offer an off-road wheel option. One potential downfall is that they’re not exactly the lightest on the market, but they are still potentially lighter than stock.
As for their quality, 3SDM wheels have passed the Japanese JWL and VIA wheel testing standards, which are often regarded as some of the strictest in the world, so you shouldn’t have to worry about their quality.
A variety of designs are available, depending on the kind of look you’re going for, and their pricing is seriously impressive.
A full set shouldn’t set you back more than $1,500, which considering all the plus points, is seriously impressive.
Best Wheel Brands for Higher Budgets
While there’s nothing wrong with the manufacturers mentioned earlier, oftentimes enthusiasts will want the best of the best.
If you can stretch your budget for something better, then you should consider the following manufacturers.
Gram Lights
If there’s a favorite wheel brand among JDM enthusiasts, it’s definitely RAYS Engineering.
They’re the people behind the JDM stalwart rim, the Volk TE37, but what’s easy to forget sometimes is that they have an expansive line-up of wheels for just about any application.
A close second favorite after the TE37 and other Volk wheels is the company’s Gram Lights line.
As the name implies, the focal point of the Gram Lights wheel line is that they’re lightweight, which goes back to the unsprung mass benefits.
Gram Lights offers some pretty sweet designs, including the well-known 57CR, the 57DR, and the 57XR.
We’ve seen these wheels countless times on all sorts of builds, and with RAYS’ proven track record, you can count on them to not only look good but also for excellent performance and longevity.
However, there is a price to pay for all that. Gram Lights wheels tend to be a little more expensive than some of the above-mentioned budget-conscious offerings, with a set of 4 reaching closer to $2,000.
The good thing is, Gram Lights has a lot of things going for it to justify the price.
Despite their main focus being lightness, they aren’t quite as featherweight as some other rim options on the market, but they’re still likely to be lighter than your stock wheels.
They might cost a little more, but they’re well worth it.
Rotiform
Despite being a relative newcomer in the world of wheels, Rotiform has carved out quite a niche and a reputation for itself. Despite their seemingly low cost per wheel, Rotiform is all about choice.
For starters, it offers dozens of different designs, and each one takes inspiration from the factory wheels of a familiar car we all know and love, and sometimes from different places as well.
Big deal, right? Every wheel manufacturer offers such a choice.
However, Rotiform takes it a step further, as they offer a variety of different configurations based on the look you’re going for.
Exposed hardware, concave or flat spokes, dish and lip depth, you name it. You can go for just one option, or you can combine multiple options to perfect the look you’re going for.
As well as that, if you’re going for a specific OEM+ look, Rotiform wheels do have the aesthetics to assist you in achieving that.
The AVS, for example, looks great on an early 2000s Audi, while the SIX and their Volk TE37-inspired look will suit a JDM build exceptionally well. They also offer steelie-inspired designs, like the IGS and the 356.
Rotiform also offers a variety of different finishes to make sure that the wheels match the color of your build or fit in with the color theme that you’re going for.
As most enthusiasts would agree, one of the strong suits of Rotiform wheels is their versatility.
Due to their inspired designs, Rotiform wheels can look good on just about any build, and the company gives you the power to do that even further with the aforementioned personalization options.
Rotiform is also a wheel supplier in the world of motorsport, notably on Mad Mike’s fleet of rotary-powered drift machines.
They also had a partnership with the late Ken Block, even creating a custom design in his honor a couple of years ago, the KB1, which you can still buy today.
Rotiform really does have the hookups when it comes to excellent alloy wheel designs.
They look great, they’re manufactured with state-of-the-art methods, and they’re surprisingly affordable, even when you opt for a special order.
BBS
53 years of making some of the highest quality wheels in not just the aftermarket business, but also the automotive industry as a whole, and even motorsports.
With such a legacy behind them, it’s easy to see why BBS wheels continue to dominate as a lot of people’s first choice when it comes to the best brands for rims.
There are a few good reasons for this. For one, BBS’ expertise is pretty much unrivaled in the world of wheels.
It still manufactures wheels for different types of race cars today, both for purchase and as a supplier in various motorsport disciplines and varying terrain.
Today, BBS is still going strong, despite facing bankruptcy for a short while. Its lineup still includes the classics we all know and love, like the FI-R, the LM, the LM-R, and the favorite among classic Euro car owners, the Super RS.
Don’t worry, though. Despite BBS wheels making frequent appearances on Euro builds, they look great on JDM cars, too.
The only thing is, most of them start at 18″, so it only makes sense if your build has larger wheels to begin with. It also, as of publishing, does not offer any sort of off-road wheels.
Along with its excellent track record for road wheels, BBS has drawn a deep line in the sand when it comes to motorsport application wheels.
As well as the variety of designs and sizes it offers for race-spec machines, it’s among a handful of manufacturers that offer a proper centerlock setup.
While BBS wheels tend to be on the more expensive side, particularly when it comes to motorsport wheels, which can easily fetch over $5,000, it’s a price worth paying for one of the premiere manufacturers of aftermarket wheels in the world.
Concluding Summary
There are multiple ways you can go with aftermarket rims for your car, depending on budget, intent, and the look you’re going for.
We recommend considering factors such as desired track width, wheel offset, and whether you’ll be installing low-profile or regular tires.
You also need to know how to measure your rims properly to know the optimal amount of backspacing.
These 6 manufacturers are some of the most popular rim brands in the business, but our top picks would have to go to König, Rotiform, and BBS.
If you’re after the best bang for your buck aftermarket rim choice, it’s tough to beat Enkei and its proven track record, not to mention its manufacturing techniques.
If your budget stretches a little more, Rotiform offers an impressive amount of choice, customization opportunities, and sizing.
Finally, if money is no object, and you want to outfit your build with some of the absolute best aftermarket wheels money can buy, BBS is the way to go.
Their motorsport and supplier expertise has allowed them to make some truly quality products, and while BBS wheels are fairly expensive in the grand scheme of things, they still offer excellent value.
What’s your go-to aftermarket wheel brand? Let us know by leaving a comment below!