Meet the specialist: Veteran Car Rims - Update

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Chris and Matt Wedgwood share many skills and interests. If you have any involvement with steam cars, you may know of them through their business GMA Engineering. Steam has been central to the family for five generations, ever since their great-great-grandfather, a contemporary of Brunel, abandoned pottery to become a boiler-maker. Since the 1950s, the family have been actively involved with steam preservation, and Chris and Matt have made steam cars their specialism, especially Whites and Serpollets.

All that, however, is really for another article, as is the fact that Chris is currently constructing a replica of an early Frank Lloyd Wright house. We mention it merely to illustrate that he has a good grasp of various disciplines of engineering so that, when an important maker of wheel rims for early cars was put up for sale in March 2022, he was the ideal person to take it over.

A unique service for enthusiasts

Veteran Car Rims was founded in New Zealand in 1989 by Brian Black, and over time it came to be known as the only maker of authentic beaded-edge and lock-ring (or straight-sided) wheel rims. As such, it is responsible for supplying rims to many of the leading wheel-makers and it’s set to expand further with the brothers at the helm.

"I like making things," Chris says, when asked what led him to purchase Veteran Car Rims. "It seemed to be a good business and it would have been a shame for the historic car community to have lost it."

Since moving the works to the Isle of Man, Chris and Matt have taken on two workers and continued supplying five types of rim - beaded-edge, rolled-edge, knife-edge, split and lock-ring - to wheel-makers around the globe and the factory, though compact, is neat, logically arranged and efficiently run.

Old-fashioned craftsmanship meets cutting-edge technology

On entering the works, the first machine one encounters is a guillotine, which simply cuts the sheet metal first to the right width and then to the right length. Next is a set of rollers, which takes the strips of metal and rolls them into an approximate circle. Each rolled-up strip moves on to the automatic welder and becomes an unbroken ring. "We weld it with a tag on each end," Chris explains, "to make sure you don't get a bad weld at the start and finish." Ninety per cent of the weld is then milled off, and the final dressing is done by hand.

The next stages are for the rings to go into a roller to be rolled into their final form. Chris's staff make it look extremely easy, but they remind us that "Some rims are more complicated than others." Some rolled-edge rims, for example, go through seven stages of rolling. There are also machines which can shrink or expand them if necessary. "When they're finished," Chris adds, "they're checked for dimensional accuracy by an inspector, and only after that do they have the size etched on."

The business of making wheel rims is not an easy one to get into given the highly specialized machinery required. Every machine in the factory is a unique item made in New Zealand to a bespoke order from Brian Black. Essentially, nothing has changed from the way things were done in New Zealand, and in many ways the process is the same as it was 100 years ago, but Chris has made a few changes to bring the 35-year-old technology up to date. "We've invested in a digital automatic welder," he says. "The most important part of the wheel is the weld, and what we've done improves repeatability and consistency." The other machines have also had a kind of digital memory installed, so they retain data for certain dimensions and tolerances and ensure identical rims can be produced ad infinitum.

We have mentioned the different types of rims which Veteran Car Rims manufactures. It goes without saying that they are also made in all different sizes, for motorcycles as well as cars, and for vintage and classic models from Bentleys to MGBs, not just the veterans.

That's enough to cover almost every need, but there's more in the pipeline. "Historically, we've only ever made rims and let wheel-makers add furniture, but in America the Model T people want complete rims, so we're going to put the locating clamps and brackets on so they'll have a more complete product," says Chris. There will, of course, be very early or unconventional cars which, for absolute originality, require wheel rims not readily available, and Chris adds, "Other styles of rim may be available soon if the demand is there."

Focussed on quality

If you ever buy beaded-edge or lock-ring wheels, the rims will likely have come from Veteran Car Rims because it's the only company making them, but that's not necessarily true with rolled-edge or knife-edge. Some wheel-makers use cheaper rims made in Asia. On a technical level, they differ insofar as the Manx-made rims are cold-rolled, from European quality-controlled steel stock, whereas others are typically spun. One difference between the Wedgwoods' rims and other makers' is, says Chris, that "Other rims have a different profile, which isn't actually the correct profile for the period. Ours have the correct profile."

The quality of the foreign products might be first-rate, but who can tell? The factories do not advertise outside of the industry. Chris's view is, "If you care about quality, authenticity, environmental legislation, air miles of products and guaranteed conditions of the workforce, buy British." As can be seen here, Chris is more than happy to show what goes on behind the scenes and will answer any questions anyone might have about his products. If you really wanted, he would, by prior arrangement, be prepared to show you around the works.

With Veteran Car Rims, what you see here is what you get - accurate, authentic reproduction rims made to a high standard by skilled craftsmen on the Isle of Man. To see the workings of the factory is about as good a guarantee as you can get for a product, and if you'd like Chris and Matt’s wheel rims on your restoration project, you'd best talk to your wheel supplier and specify them.

Veteran Car Rims is located in Ramsey on the Isle of Man. Speak to Chris on +44 (0)7624 469946 or visit www.veterancarrims.co.uk for more information.

UPDATE - Veteran Car Rims limited is pleased to announce the addition of Hayes Wheels products, this company was formed around 1970 by Elster C Hayes and operated out of Oakcrest Machine shop, Springfield Ohio ever since. The business changed hands several times in recent years and in December 2023 we were able to purchase all remaining stock, machinery and intellectual property from Hayes Wheels.

Elster had gathered a lot of information regarding makes and types of rims used by different automotive manufactures and had compiled a comprehensive library. Although he did venture into rolled rims, it is fair to say that Veteran Car Rims in NZ pursued this route further. Hayes Wheels went down the route of producing the range of de-mountable rims, which are machined rather than rolled from flat stock.

Having now acquired this capability Veteran Car Rims can now announce that it can supply almost any rim you may require from drawing or sample, including Firestone, Hayes, Booth, Jaxon and Stanweld rims to name just a few.

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