- Remember the old days when you could just jump
on RuneScape, Halo 3, World of Warcraft.
Your friends list was lit up
like a Christmas tree,
just little green circles,
and you had I-L-I-L-I-L-L-I-L-L-I-L-I-Z-Z,
I was online.
You remember those usernames?
God those sucked to type in.
You jump on TeamSpeak, plug in your terrible microphone,
turn on "A Day to Remember"
and just drown out the world.
Alright. I still use "A Day to Remember"
to drown out the world and I'm 27.
Then months would pass and life went on.
You got older and the days
of playing those video games,
every single day just got a little bit less frequent.
Alright, over time, the days of games got less
and staring at lawns got more often.
Now we look back at those moments
and reminisce about the old,
you ready for this, good old days.
While we drink a beer,
jump on free to play RuneScape,
and then just quit after Tutorial Island
because in all honesty, it's really not that exciting.
It's like that is what's happening to after-market wheels.
And it's kind of a sad day.
I'm Alex, Alex.fi on Instagram
and today we're gonna be talking about
why after-market wheels could potentially,
kind of, sorta being, dying.
(upbeat music playing)
And if you're looking for after-market wheels,
tires or suspension be sure to hit us up
over at fitmentindustries.com
where we literally have it all,
including coilovers, air suspension.
We'll tie your packages, send them to your door.
You know, there, the good good.
Anyway, let's chat about this.
It's actually kind of a sad introduction,
but it's happening a little bit around here. Alright.
When you take it back to the early days of
after-market wheels, whether that's the 50s
of Enkei and American Racing,
70s of Work, Volk, XXR.
The 2010s of Rotiform,
or even the 2020 of Artisa Wheels.
There's always been a common theme,
making bad-ass after-market wheels.
The market for them has always been there ever since anyone,
a mom, a dad could actually take a wrench
and change something on a car.
It's always been there and it's always been huge.
You had companies like American Racing,
supplying wheels to domestic motorheads
before people even understood
what a vehicle could actually do.
The first vehicle, even the motor carriages
that people got, they would modify
and curve and make different.
I mean, ever since this was even a conversation,
people were making things different.
You had companies like Enkei throwing wheels
on Hondas when it was founded in Japan.
They were one of the first ones to
understand the function and purpose
of lightweight barrels on their wheels
and what rotational mass meant,
all of that good stuff.
You had enthusiasts building enthusiast wheels
and making a ton of money.
But over time, you heard, some things change.
Alright, you see in general the production
of automobiles across the world grew
more as decades pass.
It never really shrunk down.
And even while you were fighting
with the 70s of the EPA and things like that,
production always pretty much went up.
And while many manufacturers in China, Japan, India, Russia,
and even America, were trying
to make every single part for its cars,
they just couldn't do it all.
And they really didn't want to.
Parts that required aluminum alloy casting,
heavy used parts like tires and all the fluid stuff.
wasn't something that they could really make on their own,
nor did they really want to.
Turns out Ford wasn't very excited about
that sort of stuff so they outsourced a lot of it.
So as car manufactured entered the 50s, 60s, and 70s,
they started reaching out
to more and more after-market companies
to help produce, you guessed it, car parts,
because the supply and demand started to not equal out.
Parts for their Fords, Hondas Chevys and so forth.
Everything that they could imagine,
as demand increased ,supply had to meet it.
And a lot of initial after-market wheel companies
made just that, only after-market stuff.
So when car manufacturers came to them and said,
"Hey, we're looking to get a few thousand sets of wheels
for our car, if you'd be interested"
and like, Enkei was like, I mean,
should we do it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're good.
Let's yup, got it, sounds good.
And that is pretty much what happened.
And after-market wheel companies began making wheels
for OE specifications, wheels specifically
for the production of factory normal lame,
boring, slow ass cars.
Alright. Because guess what?
There's this thing called money
and it actually made them very happy.
A lot of them still supply
a lot of their after-market wheels.
You got things like JWL and VIA testing
become established for places like Japan
or the United States
and other countries developed testing programs
and standardization for their vehicles as well,
to make sure that these after-market wheel companies
made wheels that would be safe to use.
Companies like Enkei, BBS, and Ronal began making
not only after-market wheels,
but also OE stuff in larger quantities
to help support everything else
that the companies were trying to do.
Because back then they weren't as big as they are now.
Car production grew and then
these manufacturers grew along with it.
So now companies that used
to be maybe doing about 5% of OE production
became 50, 50 then over the years it became 60, 40.
And now for a lot of companies in 2020,
it could be upwards of 90, 10.
The volume, ease of manufacturing once compliance
has met and contrast based agreements
were pretty appealing to after-market wheel companies
and people like you and people like me
are a little less stable
than a multi-million dollar contract.
You can't even pin me down
to get me to show up to dinner on time.
You think I'm gonna pay
for (beep) another millionaire (indistinct)
The production of the OE wheels
for these companies began taking more time,
more volumes and more priority
than the after-market wheel industry.
Not just that, but you had the volume.
Alright, the volume was there. Alright.
The compliance standpoint also was a lot harder
to meet in the OE market
than it is in the after-market market
because you have rigidity testing, radio fatigue testing.
OE compliance as a whole just requires a lot more work
than slapping together a three-piece wheel
and throwing it on a car because it looks neat.
Because ultimately those wheels have to stay alive
for decades and decades and decades.
They can't just bend.
They can't just randomly break.
And because of that, it put a lot of pressure
on these after-market wheel companies
to make OE wheels. They just could not fail.
That ends up taking companies more time,
more research, more money, over and over
as car manufacturers
changed body styles every three years for some reason.
Brakes across nine different trims
and different fitments across seven
different pieces of land
because what you get here in the United States
is different than what you get in Japan,
which is different than what you get in Europe,
which is different than what you get in Australia.
The last one is probably not true,
but because of all the variation,
it caused these wheel manufacturers
to really start to spread out the amount
of focus and time that they had
to support OE production.
But why does that matter for shiny wheels
and an 18 by 9 1/2 plus 22?
Well, because the five-spoke ugly boys
that are on your town and country make more sense
to a company that would probably produce both.
One is low volume, it's low consistent form of revenue,
money, alright?
And the other is massive volume,
constant form of revenue through contracts
and more, and guess what?
Companies like Enkei and others put a ton
of faith into their effort, into their OE production.
Well now the after-market support could
and has dwindled a little bit when compared
to companies that solely focus
on after-market wheel designs,
after market wheel production
and everything like that.
So over the years things have switched.
Companies that used to make both
are now focusing more heavily on one side.
And unfortunately for people like you
and people like me,
it's not the side we usually want.
This switch causes after-market wheel companies
to release less new designs.
It has by and large, less support,
and it reduces the amount of focus
in the overall after-market scene.
And that is what makes me sad, okay?
Some say that the after-market support
is still there and stronger than ever,
but when you actually take a look at it,
when you compare a brand that does have both compared
to a brand that doesn't,
there's just no comparison.
Pair that with OE manufacturers
generally not wanting you to swap out the wheels
and you have a double negative
where the odds just keep stacking up.
But here's the great news,
there's more after-market wheel companies than ever before.
Companies that solely focused on after-market wheel design
and not OE production.
It's just a lot of the older companies are now starting
to focus on OE production
because it's a longterm investment. Sure.
Now all these new companies
are 50 years old or from overseas.
But the fact that there are companies continuing
to support the community with other new companies
and new wheels is pretty badass.
You have incredible stories like Rotiform from the 2010s.
Chris from Concept and even well,
I mean us, with Artisa Wheels.
So while we may continue to see
the older companies beginning
to evolve into more mature OE style production,
unless after-market, because they love money
and it's way easier than after-market wheels.
People like us will catalyze companies
that love to support making our cars less reliable
and way more fun.
But what do you think?
Let us know what you'd like us to talk about next
and if you're looking for after-market wheels,
tires or suspension,
be sure to hit us up over at fitmentindustries.com.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries,
I'm gonna finish the coffee
that's in my little flower cup
'cause I didn't have another coffee cup.
Don't judge me.
We will See you later, peace.