Is Fuchs still in business producing wheels?

[jkarolyi]

In my other post regarding my '89 Carerra being the last to offer Fuchs wheels, I was wondering what happened to Fuchs as a company. After '89, did they stop producing wheels entirely and fold up? I've never heard of Fuchs making wheels for public sale or for automakers. Are new, genuine Fuchs still being made, and by whom?

[jorian]

From what I understand the molds to make the Fuchs were destroyed at the request of Porsche. Not sure about the company though.

[ghnat]

But I though Wheel Enhancements gets NEW Fuchs every so often?

[len911]

Is this them? http://www.fuchs-schrauben.de/home.htm Lou

[len911]

Nope, that was not it... This is them!! http://www.fuchsfelge.com/

Look under Rader... in Porsche section looks like they are still making 6x16s.... And it looks like they make all of BMW's wheels including "M parallels" Lou

[VaSteve]

There was an add running on Speed a month or two ago with a guy showing off some gizmo to clean wheels. I could swear he said he was with Fuchs, but they didn't caption it on the screen.

But I have wondered the same thing.

[s5uewf]

I bought new Fuchs from Porsche last year. They came from Germany. I doubt they had been aging in a warehouse since the 1980's, but anything is possible.

[eddie914]

WOW!

I have a set of Fuchs I didn't know about!

The set on the Chevy Suburban!

I was browsing the Fuchs website and selected the GM wheels.

Low and behold up pops a picture of the wheels I have on the family hauler ... K2500 Chevrolet Suburban.

They are beautifully made polished aluminum.

16 x 6.5 et28

They might even fit the Porsche ... except for the extra 3 lug holes?

Eddie

[jpahemi]

FUCH stop making the 911 5 star wheel in 2000; the ones from Porsche are what's left of their stock. You can see the date stamp inside the wheel.
j.p.

[Jason Cullen]

Originally posted by jpahemi
FUCH stop making the 911 5 star wheel in 2000; the ones from Porsche are what's left of their stock. You can see the date stamp inside the wheel.
j.p.

JP - I have 01 and up codes coming on 911 Alloys, NIB - Porsche owns the tooling kit to produce the 911 Alloy. Fuchs Forging Co. has exclusive rights to produce the 911 Alloy only to Porsche. They batch new wheels from time to time.

Thank you,
Jason

[jpahemi]

Jason:
Maybe it was the 9's that were last produced in 2000; not sure?
j.p.

[Won]

http://www.otto-fuchs.com/english/index.html

[randywebb]

"1964: Petrol fox builds the first standard aluminum wheel, the legendary Porsche impeller."

[jkarolyi]

Wow, cool stuff! Thanks guys...

>They are beautifully made polished aluminum.

Aren't all Fuchs wheels forged? Pretty cool that Chevy would use those on a Suburban.

[randywebb]

I'm not sure that all the wheels they make are forged, esp. nowadays. Today, a lot of wheels are pressure cast, which is an improvement over sand casting & other archelogical methods. So the difference between a typical casting and a forging is reduced (unless forging has also changed and gotten better).

[Grady Clay]

Randy,

Great post.

This might be a place to document all the Fuchs wheels. I’ll see if I can find the pictures I used for the ’76 Parade Tech Quiz. I have images of EVERY Porsche wheel (3.5x16 and later.) Of course there are many more since.


ALL, post pictures and dimensions of all the wheels.

Best,
Grady

[LeRoux Strydom]

The website posted above shows the company name as (translated from German) as Fuchs Forged Aluminium Wheels (Geschmiedete Aluminium Raeder). Click on Porsche, and the following pic pops up:



Size is quoted as 6Jx16, so I guess they still make a limited range.

[rusnak]

There was an interesting article in Excellence by Jerry Sloniger, their European Editor, titled "All Wheels are Round" from the May 2000 edition.

It had my interesting facts, including the history of the Fuchs wheels (no one is really sure who came up with the initial design), the key Fuchs innovation of precise heat control and hydraulic presses and rollers to make the world's first mass produced forged wheels.

Some of the more interesting facts:
over 60 steps are involved;
Fuchs is proud of their tolerances of no more than .01 mm (wow);
when they contracted with Fuchs, cast wheels were not strong enough to satisfy Porsche;
Fuchs cannot sell its wheels to the public;
Porsche owns the commercial rights to the wheels, but has ceased production, save for a limited run in 1998.

I will try to insert a page from that artcile here, but can't do the whole thing because I'd be breaking some sort of copyright I'm sure.

[RickM]

Interesting, I posted this question earlier today. Fuchs is one of the leading manufacturers of wheels in Europe today. My inquiry was centered aroud the production of pre '89 wheels. Some have stated that they have 16" wheels made as recently as '03 and that they believe that certian sizes are made sporadically.

[randywebb]

Each person can post a page with commentary under the Fair Use provisions of the Copyrights Act... No single person should post an entire article (unless you are sure the owner doesn't care). To obtain the fair use exception, it helps if you comment on the article or parody it. Now, I am not an Interlectual Propertie lawyah... not interlectual enuff I guess. If in doubt consutl a good attorney in your state who specializes in this area (and hold onto yer wallet...).

Thx Grady - that was mostly an edyercated guess by me re the cast vs. forged...

Also - I thought Bill V. had a lot of dimensions already (tho not so many for 15" wheels)... do we want every dim. for every wheel?