Reply to "Mangusta Wheels - info required"

Jonathan,
I have a Mangusta and am a retired car designer, ex Director of Design for GM Europe. I have looked at doing some wheels for the Mangusta.

I have designed many wheels both in the USA and Europe. I am experienced in evaluating criteria and executing surfaces.

I made wheel mock-ups for my car using photo enlargements and did a design exercize about two years ago. Since the car is such a simple and classic design theme it is better to enhance it with slightly larger wheels than to make very large ones that become a distraction to the design. Retaining the original design is also very important since the wheel design is so strongly associated with the car. The other big issue is rear tire diameter. Since the cars wheel openings are set up for the the original tires, Front 185X70X15 and Rear 255X70X15 the wheel opening space grows with smaller diameter tires.

Currently I am running 26" diameter fronts and 28 diameter rears, these are 15 inch tires.

The body in the front can accommodate a much larger than original 185 tire in 60 or 50 series but the rear starts looking strange compared to the front as the overall diameter shrinks. This is caused by the fact that the front tire is shielded at the top by the wheel lip but the rear is completely in the open and unshielded.
The rear also can accept a maximum of two inches added rim width to the outside of the current rim resulting in a 10" rim. After that the tire will stick out of the body.

I notice that there are no 17, 18, or 19 inch diameter tires that are as large as the currently available 15 inch tires.

I would offer my help on your wheel project to you free of charge if you would like. I suggest making photo copies of renderings of your wheel designs and then make images of them on a Mangusta.

Let me know if I can help.
DICK RUZZIN >dickruzzindesign@aol.com<