We’re always looking out for interesting cars that are coming up at auctions, but today we’re focusing on some car parts. What you see here is a used set of Mercedes SLR McLaren wheels, which have got us thinking. What car would you put these on? What would be the best, or the most inappropriate, vehicle to ride on these wheels?
There’s an argument that putting a different car manufacturer’s wheels on your car is a modifying trend that needs to die out – we’re a bit done with seeing Bentley wheels on something like a VW van, for instance – but an exception can be made for these SLR wheels. After all, how often do you see something like this for sale?
According to the auction listing on Collecting Cars, this set of wheels was removed from an SLR which had only covered delivery miles. Besides a couple of tiny imperfections, they’re near-enough pristine – as you’d expect seeing as they’ve only turned a few times.
The bright silver propellor-style wheels are a good size at 19 inches (9.5 inches wide at the front, 11.5 at the rear), and there are no diamond-cut two-tone fanciness or fussy design elements here. They just look great. Along with the pointy Formula 1-style nose, the gullwing doors, the gaping side vents and the beautiful tail-lights, they’re definitely a big part of the SLR’s appeal. The SLR was the first car with a McLaren badge since the F1, and used a 606bhp 5.4-litre supercharged V8 mated to a five-speed auto. Zero-to-60mph took under 3.5 seconds, and the SLR could hit 208mph.
With wheels getting bigger, there are plenty of modern cars that would take 19s. They’d look like base-spec wheels on an Audi RS Q8, which can be had with 23s, but they’d fill the arches of a smaller car well. Obviously, they’d suit a lot of modern Mercedes, but remove the centre caps and these would look good on a lot of cars. A BMW of some sort maybe, for ultimate German car trolling?
And, as the current bid is just £1600 at the time of writing (plus buyer’s premium, and the cost of new 255/35 front/295/35-rear tyres to replace the 2005 ones currently fitted), they may not be too far out of reach by the time the auction ends. You know, just in case you want to fit them on a Corsa. They might be a touch wide, mind.
Or, you could put them on a Mercedes SLR 722, which came with very Noughties alloys that look like they belong on a Need For Speed creation. Do that and you’d have the world’s first SLR sleeper.
Tell us what you’d put them on in the comments.
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