Damn, You Don't Even Get Truly Directional Wheels On A $500k Rolls-Royce These Days
There is little that all automotive enthusiasts can agree on — hell, there's not much that even a handful of car nerd friends can all agree on — but usually the Great Unifiers are things that we can all enthusiastically complain about. One of those things has to do with wheels, specifically wheels with directional designs. Some of the most beloved wheel designs have such a motif, like the C4 Corvette's sawblades or Porsche's turbo twists, looking like throwing stars or the twisted blades of a fan. Back in the olden days, car companies would actually produce two distinct sets of the wheels, a different one for each side of the car, so that the wheels would be pointing the same direction.
In modern times, though, car companies are cheap. Directional designs aren't really directional anymore, as in the vast majority of cases automakers create just one set of the wheel, so it looks like they're pointing different directions on each side of the car. It's a little thing that most people won't notice, but the nerdiest among us have been yelling about it for years. You might think that it's just mainstream brands that are cheaping out on this, but even the highest-end brands aren't making truly directional wheels anymore — just take a look at this Rolls-Royce Spectre Black Badge I spotted over the weekend.
Look, I get it. It's expensive to make two totally different wheels for the same design on the same car, especially if said wheels have staggered widths like the Spectre does. It makes it harder to replace a wheel if needed, and harder to rotate your tires. I doubt that any wheels like this make a notable difference in terms of aerodynamics or cooling depending on which way the design is pointed, otherwise more companies probably would be making two different sets. And I'm sure the vast majority of people, both onlookers and owners, will never notice or care that the wheels point in different directions.
But come on. If I'm dropping north of $500,000 on a brand new luxury car, I want my wheels to point the same direction. Adding insult to injury, if you go and look at Rolls-Royce's online configurator, it renders the wheels as pointing the same direction as if there are two different sets on the car! Ugh! I'm sure we can all agree on how annoying this is.
