Sooo these are a thing now I see. My buddy got a fully custom made set for his C6Z, the entire ordeal went super smooth. Dealing strickly with the manufacturer, the logistics, the finished product turned out amazing... I'm asking for advice on what actual wheel sizing to go with. Right now I'm running some BMW wheels that came off of my buddies 06 GTO. I'm probably going to mock the sizing an maybe adjust the front a bit to get a little more of a dish and help offset some rub on full lock....








I do have a 4th Gen rear end and the rears fit perfect.

 

How the car sits now

 

Your current fit looks good. Ride height and stance too. What size are they? Being BMW wheels, they're probably 120mm bolt pattern, not 120.65 like 3rdgens. Obviously, they "fit," but for custom made, get the correct bolt pattern.

Factory front was 16x8 with zero offset. A lot of people who get 17" or 18" diameter get them 9" or 9.5" wide. The 9.5" wide people say it's the best size, but I can't say I agree. I've played around with dimensions a lot, and my own are 9.5", but, IMO, 9" wide is ideal for a larger width than 8", so 8", 8.5", and 9" will be easiest to fit with zero or small offsets on the front. 9.5" can require more careful calculations to determine an appropriate offset. For the rear, a 4thgen axle is wider than a 3rdgen axle, so a rear wheel will require more/deeper offset than a rear 3rdgen wheel. What you have on there now looks good, so I'd go with that same offset/backspace for the new rear wheels, if you stay with a similar width wheel. A little deeper for a wider wheel than you have now.

I don't often compliment Hawk's, but they got it right when they chose 17x9 for reproduction wheels, and everyone who has them seems to like the fit. They have a 12mm offset, with a 6mm spacer for the front to decrease the offset for suspension clearance, which means 6mm offset should be good for 17x9 on the front. 18x9 with something like a 6-12mm offset would be good. Play around with online tire and wheel size calculators and comparers to see for yourself. They're fun tools.

I've seen a lot of great looking wheels on Alibaba, but I've never shopped Alibaba for anything. Good prices too. And it seems that you can get any style in just about any size you want. And since you have a friend who has some, and you've seen them in person and like them, then you can think for yourself and ignore blind hating.

The shop in Los Angeles that black chromed my 18" wheels, where I also get tires for all of my cars, told me that most aftermarket wheels being sold in the US these days, and a lot of tires too, are made in China, just that most people don't know it or are in denial about it. And we all know most of the auto parts industry is supplied by Chinese parts, which probably includes a lot of aftermarket parts currently on peoples' 3rdgens.

A lot of people poo on Enkei wheels too, even though they don't know their other cars probably came from the factories with wheels manufactured by Enkei. Japanese, not Chinese, Enkei is a HUGE manufacturer of OE wheels in the US and worldwide. Enkei has a large complex of buildings in south central Indiana for OE manufacturing, including its own aluminum manufacturing facility for the aluminum stock. And the facilities in Dallas are for aftermarket manufacturing. They're not expensive, so most people probably think they're poor-quality products. Their aftermarket division tends to cater to the tuner crowd, many of whom probably don't have big money to spend, and the quality of the finishes could be better too, which is probably all relative to the price and target market. But as inexpensive as they are, people can take them to their favorite wheel refinisher to make them look high-end. That's what I did. Their lack of our old school bolt pattern, closest of which is usually 120mm, like BMW, can turn people off, but a lot of people get wheels that require adapters anyway, so that kind of defeats the bolt pattern argument. And the quality of the construction is better than most cast wheels on the market. Enkei holds itself to two quality control standards, the worldwide JWL, and their own set of standards, which are higher than JWL.

Surface finish can be a legitimate issue with Chinese wheels too. My powder coater has refinished a lot of them. But, here too, they're inexpensive enough that people can probably afford to have them refinished.

There's a relatively new "US" wheel manufacturer called Aerolarri. It offers forged wheels for amazingly low prices. Aerolarri is in Chicago, but the wheels are manufactured in China, which is why they're so affordable for being fully forged wheels. They were supposed to build a US facility in 2025, and prices were to increase because of that, but that doesn't appear to have happened, as the website went back to normal, and prices are still low. A lot of styles, all custom made to order in any size. Sized for Corvettes, which have the same bolt pattern as 3rdgens. My powder coater has refinished a lot of them too. But for forged wheels, the prices leave room for custom refinishing. The lead time is long, but that's probably the case with any wheel that's custom made overseas.

But play with online calculators and look at the specs of other wheels available for classics from places like Hawk's, Classic, Year One, etc. You don't want to simply take someone's word for it without researching for yourself too, because you won't want to feel like you have to blame someone else for your decisions if things don't work out.