- Hola, mi amor Dora.
I just can't get over that TikTok anymore.
Can you say, "Ruedas" in Spanish?
That's right.
Okay, I'm sorry. I'm done.
It's wheels by the way, in case anybody was wondering.
Wheels in Spanish. Ruedas!
Can you say it angrily?
Ruedas!
All right, sorry.
There are times where there's opportunities
to do something different, all right.
Something new and there's a chance
you're gonna fall on your face.
Okay. You fail or you're getting made fun of,
you're gonna go cry at home.
That happened to me one time when I tried to be cool.
I was doing a wheelie on a dirt bike in front of my crush
in high school and then I crashed.
And I had to pay her to get a new brake lever for it.
Or a time where I had to make a PK music video in RuneScape
and I was fully loaded with my full like bank
and I died against the first DDS spec and I was very,
very sad and I just wanted to go buy more money.
But there are times where opportunity works.
Where the stars truly align.
A moment where you get to do something different,
in a community that you genuinely give a couple
two, tree- about.
Okay, kinda like my lawn mowing hobby.
I'm Alex, Alex.fi on Instagram.
And today we're gonna be talking about an opportunity
that came around to us here at the Fitment Industries.
Okay, not figment.
All right, to all of y'all?
A story that allowed us to make something,
that you weren't inherently used to.
An opportunity to have a bang on time
in this wheel, tire and suspension world.
Ladies and gentlemen,
today we're gonna be talking about you wanting
to start a wheel company.
(heavy bass R&B music)
Great job!
You just said "wheels" in Spanish.
If you ever had a chance to take a look at our site,
be sure to do so.
It's got a massive gallery where you can enter in
your year, make, and model and find out what wheels, tires,
and suspension fit your car.
Because it's a pain in the ass If you don't.
You can actually look to see exactly
what something looks like.
Plus you can snag 'em.
And we got wheels, tires, and suspension in stock.
Which means you can pick 'em up in like 10 days or less.
Because we bought way too much stuff.
It's on the website, it's quick delivery,
it's pretty slick.
Which also includes our own in-house brand
of Artisa Artform Wheels,
where we mount and bounce 'em together for you.
So if you wanna stretch your boys, we won't judge you.
Drop a comment below if you knew
that we even had our own, very own wheel company,
Artisa Artform Wheels.
And if you have, what wheels you wish we made.
Or what platform you wish we made wheels for.
And I swear to god, if Sean says spinners,
I'm gonna throw a chancla.
Wheel companies have been around since the 40's or so.
You had Enkei since production,
back in the late 40's and early 50's.
You had companies like Work, XXR, Volk, and more.
Starting their run in the early 70's.
You had those same companies make crazy aftermarket wheels.
You had 'em make crazy, OEM Wheels,
to everything in between.
Anything that the market needed,
especially as automobiles began to explode.
And life was good.
The old days, just people cut their like steelies in half.
They flipped 'em around and voila,
you had a cooler pokier wheel.
And that's called science, bitch.
And when Whittier Boulevard was packed with people
that looked cooler than John Travolta in Grease.
Great date movie by the way, if in case you're wondering.
The wheel, tire, and suspension,
and performance scene blossomed
into a massive part of the American culture.
And, also the American dream.
And that had a lot to tie into everything
that was past DUB DUB too.
People began to modify all aspects of their car.
And while aftermarket wheels were more so used
for a function specific purpose,
back in the origination days,
it began to expand past that because some people just wanted
to have some flashy boys.
Something that just looked really good.
Because people turn into big flashy boy guys, okay?
Big wheels, shiny guys.
You had companies really start pushing the confines
of what was new as well.
The introduction of aluminum alloy,
for wheel mold production, from typically stamped steel,
was a huge deal.
Especially with welded barrels.
I mean, it was a huge step in the industry.
Then you had companies learn how to assemble pieces
of a wheel together,
to a point that created the ability to adjust offsets,
sizes, and formats for on the fly racing.
You had companies introduce things like
the Infiniti lip, from Vossen.
Or ultra light design of the RPF1,
that would be technically impossible,
without the research of the racing department.
Each signature company was developing
some sort of really true key piece of information,
that pushed the industry forward and in their own way.
It's really neat.
And the growth really never stopped.
You had crazy brands start popping up all across the world,
Regamaster, American Racing, Koenig,
Vossen, Gram Lights, and so much more.
If you wanted like a small wheel
for like the JDM market, ya got it. Okay?
You wanted a big boy DUB for your Escalade
or maybe you're playin' some Midnight Club 3.
Guess what? They did that too.
You can thank Myles for that one.
You want a wide boy? mini tub? Welds?
For that late 60's Camaro?
Acá si!
It can do anything that you wanted it to.
The competition grew and the world got smaller.
And just as these companies
that have existed since the 70's,
there were also companies that have been trying to exist
and then just ultimately die throughout the decades too.
Modular concept, BBS's OEM division.
And even some scares from giants like Center Line Wheels,
were even rumored to be closed in 2017,
only to come back from the dead.
So a lot of times people seem to have this tendency
to think wheel companies have just existed forever.
Plenty of them have come and gone along the way,
as years have a tendency to come and go.
Kinda like your high school friends.
And it never really stopped.
But how? What happened?
How did people just start making wheels?
How is that a thing?
And why? How? Who? Que pasa?
Did somebody like a good ol' wheel, tire, suspension company
get to make their very own wheel company?
Which is why we're done talkin' about
the spark notes version of that history.
Because we've actually talked about it before.
We're here to talk about why we wanted
to start a wheel company and what you need to consider,
if you're thinkin' about doin' one too.
So you want to start a wheel company.
Or at least figure out how we did it.
Well, you're in the right place, friend.
Also, I should probably stop randomly switching to Spanish,
for just small fragmented words.
Artisa ArtFormed wheels was our own take on
the automotive wheel industry.
And boy did we learn a lot.
Everyone wants to have a wheel that's like light,
and strong, and capable, and available,
and cheap, and original, and has wings,
and can fix your tea, and comes in colors,
even though most people end up buy- silver or black.
When we decided to give it a shot,
we first figured out just how hard it was going to be
to design wheels that were different.
Because it's so hard.
After all, the legacy brands in the world stayed alive,
because of originality.
And key components of their business,
that they just really never strayed away from.
Work, Volk, Vossen, and more.
While each of them were different,
they all had like,
single principles that guided them through the years.
And we knew we wanted to get that.
Lightweight, that's a must.
Available, that's not actually too hard.
You just have to pull out the pennies from the piggy bank
and eat ramen for the rest of your life
and you're pretty much okay.
Popular sizes?
Not too shabby, we can figure it out.
But original designs? That's hard.
So when we started,
how can someone make an authentic design
that has its own purpose, its own vision,
its own values to this audience of people?
Then how do you sell it,
when most people will just want a TE37 look-alike,
for like 1/10th of the price?
It's a tough game to jump into.
So, our focuses were pretty simple.
Function. Does it perform?
Present.
How can we make them look different but eye catching?
And passion.
How can we show people just how much we give a about this?
Because that is really, really important.
Function before everything else.
How do you make wheels as light as possible?
Removing as much metal, without risking safety?
Because lightweight is fun.
Staying alive, funner.
It's bringing the best people to elevate the impact,
like fatigue testing, making sure that's good.
Sample designs.
We had 30 different designs that didn't meet
the initial scope of their criteria.
Without measuring the weight caps,
the strength test, the FEA analysis.
We just wouldn't make the wheel.
And that took most of a year and a half of time.
If you wanna start your own wheel company,
start with why you're making it,
versus just designing wheels.
If it's just the design, you'll eventually fall over.
And that's what the thing is with the multi-piece game.
Is everybody makes designs, but they gotta be safe.
But let me tell you, designing wheels sounds fun,
just like organizing your room,
until you're 50% into it
and you wish you would've just gone
to like grind rock crabs instead.
Because first one out of the gate was the Artisa Night,
then the Carrier, the Kinetic, the Titan,
and then finally the Elder.
But that was after 30 different renditions.
Something that most people weren't always a fan of,
in the scene, was direction.
Because of how it can soften the look of a car.
But with understanding how cars like work.
And how they look and because we're car guys,
we've pretty much figured out how to maximize the design
and minimize the softness, outside of the Artisa Night.
Each wheel also had have its own weight,
strength, and rigidity requirements we set out,
before we even started designing the elements of the wheels.
If you've snagged a set,
you'll probably see cutouts across the wheel.
Behind the spokes, behind the backpad,
in the lip or barrel,
and everywhere in between is tryin' to reduce that weight.
Anything to ultimately reduce rotational mass,
without losing the look of the wheel.
Which is what people really do actually enjoy looking at.
If you're gonna start a wheel company, authenticity is key.
Originality is tough in this world.
Especially in the wheel market.
And that's because everybody points fingers
at who's the first one to make a five spoke wheel.
Or a concave 10 spoke.
But in all honesty,
it all comes down to authenticity and care.
Each wheel we made, we wanted to show the authenticity
of who we were and why we made the wheels.
Our initials are actually on the back of each one
that we design.
Because we're the people actually designing them.
Every wheel is as light as possible,
because we've decided to have more molds than anyone,
in their right mind, would want.
The factory that we worked with actually was like,
"Are you sure you wanna do that?"
And we said, yeah. Because we're car people.
Do the thing and the stuff.
And that's the authenticity we don't want to lose.
Because the wheels are supposed to be made
for people like you! And people like me.
Could've gone without waiting for samples to come in though,
because that took like about forever.
2020 can just never, like let's just not go back.
All right?
Just me, you, and we'll walk away from
the dumpster fire together.
But that authenticity turned into our final little piece of
Artisa ArtFormed wheels, which was passion.
Maybe a bit cheesy,
but we're from Wisconsin and that's just life.
Everything needs to be a big deal.
And so we did that.
Each wheel comes with a magnetic watch box,
for the aluminum center cap.
Because nobody, I mean nobody likes plastic center caps.
In the watch box the aluminum cap is double-packed
with engraved foam.
An embossed center cap.
And an Insignia vinyl piece for the wheel, if you want it.
Because we care. Because we want to have that.
That experience is pretty much everything.
It's like when you open up a new like, Apple phone, right?
Everybody keeps the box. But why do you keep the box?
There's nothing in the box for you to keep.
There's nothing about the box that you want to keep.
Because you took everything out of the box,
outside of the extra like, things for the headphones,
before they got rid of the headphones,
because Apple is Apple.
But like, you kept the box, because it was a nice box.
Because it looked like it was carefully crafted.
Don't throw away our boxes, okay?
We worked really hard.
Connor will cry,
if you throw away his little magnetic watch box.
Because that means something to him.
And you wanna know what?
We wanna be like Apple.
We wanna have the box on the side of the shelf,
that you're gonna keep for six years,
before you finally decide to throw it away,
when you're goin' to move to your second house.
And that doesn't even go into the fact
that people spend a ton of money on their passion.
And the small details are really what should matter.
You should be able to brag about those things.
And because I love free stickers, when I order car parts.
Because who doesn't? We decided to kick it up a notch
with Artisa ArtFormed Wheels, with their like,
team care pack.
Which allows you to get like, a hat, a branded T, a jet tag,
a decal, a thank you letter, and a bunch of other stuff.
Because it's cool and it means a lot.
All right? And I just wanted to,
I wanted to give that person the thing that I would want.
We did it because we actually give a shit.
And if you're gonna start a wheel company,
just make sure that above all else,
that you care, that you give a shit.
Because there's so much noise
in the aftermarket wheel industry.
Especially in the community,
because there's so many people that question
new brands coming in and old brand shutting down.
The days of OG are quick to call on the lips
of so many people and it's for the right reasons.
Because those that are left,
have the passion to keep creating.
And for us, the passion is the most important thing.
Because without it, you're just another real company.
The team pack, the watch box, that holds the center caps,
the mounting and balancing of the wheels and tires,
so you don't have to deal with it,
straight through the website, the directional designs,
the ultra lightweight shit.
All of that stuff.
The lightweight directional stuff,
that you really only see in the three-piece wheel market,
aren't things you typically see.
And they're really damn hard
to keep making and going forward.
But we do it, because every single person that's been a part
of this channel has allowed us to do it.
And make wheels that almost everyone has asked for,
but nobody else has really decided to make that thing work.
So whether you're starting a wheel company,
a small business,
a YouTube channel, or anything in between,
above all else, don't forget to have that passion.
That drive, that thing that makes you different.
Don't be afraid.
Talk about it and let people know why you're doing it.
That's what makes this world just so incredibly cool.
Especially for the young entrepreneurs or people
that are starting their very first business
and really inherently started in the world with nothing.
And that is exactly what we're looking to do
with Artisa ArtFormed Wheels.
Create wheels for real enthusiasts.
That want properly designed wheels that are light,
have good finishes,
and have little touches of detail everywhere you look,
and every box you touch.
So you can be reminded
that we really truly super duper care.
But what do you think about us making our own wheels?
Let us know below.
And of course, if you're looking for aftermarket wheels,
tires, or suspension,
be sure to hit us up over a fitmentindustries.com.
If you're interested in learning more about Artisa,
you can be sure to check us out on YouTube.
The description link will be below.
Or you can check out the website over at artisawheels.com.
Your support means the world to us.
And we hope to see more cars
with Artisa wheels in our growing gallery.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries.
And we will see you later.
Peace!
(heavy bass R&B music)