Reproduction Campi Rims

145 views but no reply's? am I requesting information on a taboo subject?

It's likely no one's replied to your posting(s) because this subject has been discussed ad nauseum, in this forum, and there's nothing new on the subject.

Call Marino at Pantera East: 800.875.2748 or 727.381.1151. He has the wheels you want, in stock. They are the closest reproductions, lightest and least expensive too.

quote:

Call Marino at Pantera East

Ditto

Dad210...
I was watching this thread since I might need new wheels IF I ever get my rebuild going. with the recomend of "Pantera East", a google found several good hits of these wheels.

So I'll thank David also

Joe

thanks guys, yes saw many many posts, most were 2-5 years old so was just making sure there were no new developments prior to make such an important purchase

thanks guys

If there is a new development, it's that 17" tires are nearly impossible to find, particularly rear tires. You're probably better off going to 17's-front/18's-rear, 18's f&r, 18's-front/19's-rear or 19's f&r. Marino will be able to give you some advice in this regard. I'm not sure there's any good reason to go up to 20's yet. Just be careful not to use too tall a tire in the front; 24.8" tall max or it will rub like crazy and look goofy. Shorter is better...IMO. 235/40-17's work great in the front and are only about 24.4" tall.

Just remember, our beloved 225/50-15 Pirelli P7's were only 23.9" tall.

Can I ask what your plans are for the rims presently on the car ... would you be so kind to post a close up photo of the front and rear ... i might have a use for them.

Thanks Ron

quote:

Originally posted by David_Nunn:

If there is a new development, it's that 17" tires are nearly impossible to find, particularly rear tires.

David touched on an issue that's close to my heart.

I hope everyone that contacts a vendor about aftermarket wheels will drop a bug in their ear about the fact that the wheels they are offering are designed around tire sets having poor availability in today's market. The tire market has moved on since the 1990s when the current Campy clone wheels were conceived. It’s time for the aftermarket Pantera wheel offerings to evolve and better compliment what the tire industry is offering today ... including the ability to purchase the same make and model tires for the front and rear. It is bad engineering to mix makes and models of tires for the front and rear. Owners of high performance sports cars such as the Pantera should not have to do that.

Check this out:

Audi R8 V8
front tires: 235/40R18 (25.4)
rear tires: 285/35R18 (25.9)

Audi R8 V10
front tires: 235/35R19 (25.5)
rear tires: 295/30R19 (26.0)

Corvette sting ray
front tires: 245/40R18 (25.7)
rear tires: 285/35R19 (26.9)

Corvette Z51
front tires: 245/35R19 (25.8)
rear tires: 285/30R20 (26.7)

Ferrari 458 Italia
front tires: 235/35R20 (26.5)
rear tires: 295/35R20 (28.1)

Porsche 911 Carrera
front tires: 235/40R19 (26.4)
rear tires: 285/35R19 (26.9)

My best advice, when a person is able to reasonably acquire tires for the wheels they already have, I say keep them until that day when acquiring tires becomes unreasonable. BUT ... when a person is going shopping for new wheels, purchasing new wheels sized for tires that have good availability of matched front/rear sets seems to be the smart thing to do. If after being warned somebody decides to purchase wheels designed for a tire combination with poor availability, that's cool too. At least they're better informed regarding what frustration the future may have in store for them.

I've invested time checking the availability of front and rear tire sets using the same make and model of tire in the front and rear for each possible pairing of tires suited for the Pantera. I used the tire search feature at the Tire Rack's web site and at On Line Tire's web site. Compare the availability of front/rear tire sets for the contemporary tire options and the Campy clone tires. Notice NONE of the traditional vendor tire pairings (Campy clone) have front/rear tire sets avaialble. Do you think Steve or Marino may read this?





When it is time to make a purchase please contact the businesses which support this forum first, and the other Pantera parts vendors second, we at Pantera International want those businesses to thrive. But if they can't help you, and you're interested in a set of Campy clone wheels sized for contemporary tires, contact American Republic Wheels, which is the new name for Boyd Coddington:

American Republic Wheels/Elite Series (Campi)

quote:

Originally posted by accobra:
Can I ask what your plans are for the rims presently on the car ... would you be so kind to post a close up photo of the front and rear ... i might have a use for them.

Thanks Ron

Ron,
-let me get you some good pictures of them, I will not have any use for them once I get my new rims, they are in very nice shape, car has 30K on it and was well cared for

thanks David and George, I was so focused on rims I didn't stop to think about potential tire issues, will look into 18" rears now

Check out CCW wheels. they have a new line of 15", 16" and 17" 3-piece modular wheels that can be finished in just about anythign you want. Not campy look, but very nice wheels.

Here are some good tire/wheel combos for stock bodied Panteras. Pirelli makes the P-Zero Corse in the sizes for the 18"/19" combo listed below but the rear has limited availability. The Toyo R1 is also tough to find in the rear size but they do still make it.

I would call Boyd Coddington Jr./aka American Republic Wheels as George mentioned. He use to make the wheels for Marino (and possibly still does? not sure), Marino was limited on sizes I wanted so I had to go direct to Coddington (there have been some name changes on companies since then), maybe Marino can do special orders now? Boyd could make the wheels custom to any size you want. He can change the hoop size from 15-20"+ and give you any width, any back space, and last time I spoke to him he had an exclusive forged hoop which is stronger and liter, welded to what I consider to be the most accurate Campy style reproduction center out there. If you don't like the polished look you can have them painted.

Be careful, there are some vendors that sell a wheel that has the center pentagon rotated (or at least they us to)...it is not a good clone of the wheel and was done to get around a exclusivity agreements with manufactures of the clone wheels. My wheels sizes are 17 x 8 front and 18 x 9.5 rear. When I bought my wheels the hoop size were very limited. If I could have I'd gone with 9" wide in the front and 11" in the rear.

This is the incorrect center that some vendors use to produce...I know because my wheels were made incorrectly the first time and I requested a remake.

This is a close up of the correct center. The machine work is very nice.

Nice wheel. Makes me want to have a special closet for my Pantera wheels. Hard to decide which ones I want to wear today?

quote:

Originally posted by David_Nunn:
If there is a new development, it's that 17" tires are nearly impossible to find, particularly rear tires.

David,

I'm not sure I agree, I just reshod the GT5 and 335/35-17 tires were readily available, admittedly choices were limited to Michelin Pilot Sport or Pirelli P Zero, but no problem in obtaining either.

The problem with larger rims is it jacks the Pantera up like a 4x4. If I had a mind and $$ I'd go back to 15" on the GT5 despite the tire availability.

Julian

Julian,

I suppose "nearly impoosible" was too strong a term to use, as 17" tires are still available, but in the context of giving advice to someone who's about to buy a new set of wheels, I thought the chances of being able to buy 18" replacement rear tires five years from now, is much better than 17" rears.

By the way, I'm in 100% agreement with you. No wheel/tire combination looks better than the original 15" Campi's. That's because, the radius' of the Pantera's wheel wells were designed to match the radius of 15" wheels. It's that simple. When you put a larger wheel on a Pantera, the radius of the wheel "clashes" with the radius of the fender opening. The rear fender opening has a larger radius so bigger wheels don't look quite so out-of-place as they do on the front. To make matters worse, 17" and larger, tires are larger in overall diameter than our beloved 15" Pirelli P7's.

Unfortunately, if your prime considerations are safety and performance, we have no choice but to use larger diameter wheels and tires.

If some tire company began making speed rated tires in the appropriate sizes, I'd have my 8" & 10" Campi's back on the car in a heartbeat!

I plan on using a 235/40 x 17 or 245/40 x 17 for the front, and 285/40 x 18 for the rear. Going with the Continental Extreme Contact DW it's a W rated tire and has both sizes. Both these sizes match the original Pantera tire diameter for a narrow body. Obviously the sidewalls will be shorter but IMO 40's look pretty good. A bit of the new look (shorter side walls and taller wheels) but still keeping with the original wheel look and definitely a better tire than what came stock on any OEM Pantera.

I'm about ready to order those tires now from TireRack.com. There are also 5 other brands in that size. These sizes are a bit wider than original sizes but balance the car very well (per Mad Dog who races with this size tire). Hopefully these sizes will be in production for a while as quite a few performance cars came with similar sizing in the last 10 years.

There a few trade offs and if I sell the car to someone who demands the original look my, old wheels and tires will still fit.