RSR Fuchs - Actual Color in Germany
 

My wife and visited the Porsche museum and had a great time. I happened to pass by an RSR and the wheels caught my attention. These wheels, that I am assume are about as factory as one can get, appear to be much more silver than the ones I have seen stateside. The examples I see at home appear to be more milky white.

Any guesses as to why? :confused:





http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1410433138.jpg

These wheels appear restored. The shoreline is way too low on the paint. If that is the case, the factory's guess is as good as ours. Fuchs (the manufacturer) does not restore their wheels, and Harvey is in the USA...
I guess the factory are as clueless as most.

Sorry but that's not correct. Fuchs does offer a restoration service. In fact, sending old rims to Fuchs for restoration is very popular with Porsche owners here in Germany.

Fuchsfelge: Refurbishment

They're on the metric system?;)

Oh Wow. I stand corrected.

These look nothing like originals, though. I have seen my share of them.

My first guess is that the wheels aren't actually finished like the RSR wheels. If I had to guess, I'd guess "paint". On a static display, sometimes the very small details are glossed over. The next guess I have is a variation on the first - the wheels were refinished in RSR style, then clearcoated with a satin finish.

My understanding of the process is that the real RSR wheels were bead-blasted, then re-anodized, the lip polished and the centers (minus the petals) were painted satin black. This gives the wheels their sort of "matte silver" effect.

Someone jump in here and correct my details, please.

But only for EU customers.

It would not have made sense in '73 to go to such extent for wheels that will be raced, see multiple mounts/dismountsand not be babied around.
I would say the wheels are "raw" from the forging process, have a machined lip to ensure the bead diameter/thickness is correct, and then a splotch of paint is thrown at it to create the look that will sell on the street cars.

Where's Harvey when we need him?

Hmmm, I'm kinda thinking the factory really doesn't care as much as we do!!

FWIW...I was at a concours recently and was talking to a guy about his RSR finished wheels. They had the exact same minimal paint as the picture above. I asked him about it and his reply was that was how the original RSR wheels were done. One man's comment doesn't make it fact...unless of course you say it on a forum:) But he seemed to know what he was talking about...

My understanding (I believe I read it in Panorama years ago) was that the rims were too deep to polish so they just did the lip and and dipped them and called it good. Either way they look awesome.

When you think about it, back in the day they probably didn't put too much effort into the detail appearance of wheels for a race car. They probably just wanted to emulate the appearance of their road cars without spending a ton of time or money on it. They used steelies on racing cars long after Fuchs were introduced and a lot of that probably had to do with how expensive Fuchs were/are.

I blasted my rear Fuchs several times with different medium to varying degrees of success chasing that perfect RSR finish. Finally cried to a friend/builder who chuckled and said order "silbur" from Pelican. Dead ringer. Nobody knows it is rattle can. The funny thing is how practicle it is for race teams to use rattle cans between weekends. Duh.

Based on several posts here, I am thinking the silver paint theories are making more sense to me. Here's to hoping Harvey chimes in.