I don’t normally go into Wheelie bars –you know, the clubs and bars that cater to the wheel, rim, and tire enthusiasts – since I’m kept plenty busy just trying to keep up with taillight culture and all of those bars and clubs. But, the other day, I was on my way to my court-ordered community service work at the animal shelter, where I have to assist in performing cosmetic surgeries on some of the homelier dogs to help them get adopted. You know, butt-lifts, lip filler, that sort of thing. Anyway, while I was driving by, I saw a pretty brutal fight happening between some customers from the Wheelie bar and the art history bar next to it.
Very curious, I parked and walked over to see what the hell was going on, because I always like to get really involved in public physical altercations that don’t involve me at all. The Wheelie bar was an old dumpy dive called Spinners, and next to it was an even sadder, divier establishment called the Cranky Curator. This was one of those art historian bars, usually filled with bitter and under-employed academes and curators, more often than not bitching about how those new “Van Gogh Immersive Experiences” debase and cheapen the art until it all feels like something that Disneyland considers closing down every few years.
Anyway, this time it seems that some drunk curators leaving the bar met up with some drunk wheel-enthusiasts, and happened to have with them a folio of cathedral rose windows, those ornate round windows I’m sure you’ve seen on your local cathedral. Anyway, one of the curators dropped the folio of window engravings, and the drunk Wheelies got ahold of them and started noticing that some of the designs might make some great car wheels.
At first, the curators agreed, and the group managed to drunkenly bond over this for a while – until they started ranking them. That’s when all hell broke lose, and within minutes what started as two groups of hyper-focused aesthetes coming together to combine two very removed disciplines soon became a flurry of fists and elbows and a few liberated teeth skittering across the pavement like a handful of porcelain cockroaches.
So, to break up the kerfuffle, I stepped in and proposed the only solution I knew all parties would agree to: we will get the Autopian Readership – by far the most respected group of humans and typing-capable sea mammals on Earth – to decide the ranking.
So, with that in mind, and with the spirit of peace and togetherness and understanding, please, let’s all just rank which of these famous cathedral rose windows make the best car wheel designs. Sound good? Sure it does. Here’s the windows/wheel options, based on the rose windows from the folios. I’ve taken the liberty of not including the stained glass, and focusing instead on just the structure and design of the rose window itself. I’ve also de-saturated any color from the windows when they’re placed as wheels on the car, to prevent color from, um, coloring your opinions.
Ready to decide which cathedral window works best? Here we go!
One of the most famous cathedrals ever, and one of the finest examples of French-Gothic architecture, Notre Dame features some fantastically ornate windows with a sort of repeating cloverleaf-pattern. Does this 1160s-era design hold up well in the context of wheels? I think it kind of does! A bit fussy, perhaps, but they’re definitely striking!
Less famous than many of these others but still important, is the Basilica of San Zeno in Verona. Done in a pre-Gothic Romanesque style, these rose windows are a bit less ornate than many of these other options, and have a certain spoked-wheel quiet dignity about them. This cathedral is also notable because the crypt was the setting for the marriage of Romeo and Juliet in Bill Shakespeare’s famous play that you sort of read in school.
St.Paul, notable for us as the patron saint of writers and publishers, has a cathedral dedicated to him in London, and it is a great example of English Baroque architecture. The rose windows are again a bit less ornate than their Gothic cousins, making for a more open and airy wheel. It’s also probably pretty good for brake cooling.
Westminster Abbey is a prime example of Gothic architecture, and you can see the gothic-type pointed arch as a major motif in this rose window. This design feels less spoke-dependent and more stellar or floral, a complex design that somehow manages to not feel so fussy.
Perhaps the finest example of High Gothic architecture in the world, Chartres Cathedral just outside of Paris has complex yet elegant and orderly rose windows that lend themselves quite nicely to wheel design, forming a lacy web of supports in the wheel, saturated in the mathematical rhythms that define its structure.
Okay! These were the five rose windows and wheels that was causing all the commotion; let’s see if we can come to a final consensus, at long last, as to which cathedral wheel makes the best wheel! Please, vote away!
This is the content I come here for!
I went back and checked my favourite rose window (the one at York Minster), but I don’t think it would work as a wheel, aesthetically or structurally.
Westminster Abbey kind of already looks like basket weave wheels like on a late 70s Firebird
I feel sea-n.
Also pleased to see my top two options are currently the top two in the poll. I always knew the commentariat here had good taste. 🙂
If any of these are to be successful, they need to have tires with a sidewall of about 1″ tall and be no less than 26″.
“But, the other day, I was on my way to my court-ordered community service work at the animal shelter, where I have to assist in performing cosmetic surgeries on some of the homelier dogs to help them get adopted. You know, butt-lifts, lip filler, that sort of thing.”
The thing I like the best here is the implication that Torch has the necessary skills to do this. Also ironic in as much as I also adopted a dog from a shelter over the weekend (you can see on the Discord pets area if so inclined). Pretty sure my new boy hasn’t had any work done.
Anyway, never change, Torch. Except your clothes including underwear, because that’d be icky.
San Zeno definitely the most structurally-sound, but Westminster reminds me of the Trans-Am snowflakes so got the nod.
What a lucky encounter for a car journo. This is the exact kind of absolute nonsense I come here for. Thanks Torch!
Not one of those windows has a spoke pattern that’s a factor of five, so they’d all look equally horrible bolted to a five stud hub.
As plastic wheel trims they are all effective, if awful, and a surprisingly under-used source of income for normally cash-hungry cathedrals. My local one sells all kinds of branded crap, including booze, but no car parts.
Westminster has a definite bbs basket weave feel to it, which puts it at the top for me. I also really like the delicacy of Chartres, but holy hell would those suck to clean
This is an excellent post and i was very happy to read it.
Dana Scully : Yeah, this is how I like my Mulder. Fox Mulder : So you‘re agreeing with me? Dana Scully : No! You‘re bat–crap crazy!
The reboot was rough, but this episode was a keeper.
As for Torch…. “defies the limit of man’s understanding” or some such X-Files paraphrasing.
So I read this, and think about it, and then look at them again to see which ones probably wouldn’t have enough metal in them without a change in proportion, so I started thinking about how the St Paul’s wheels would look with thicker parts connecting rim to hub……and then I thought “the fuck am I doing?” Voted anyway.
No Sagrada Familia?!?!
Does it count if the Cathedral isn’t finished? I feel like Sagrada will perpetually be a tower short of complete.
But you’d still get my vote.
I think you just started a trend. I fully expect to see this on the market within 45 days and in 22” form on some ultra low rides. Congrats my dude.
If my 3D printer were big enough….
From Houston so I have to ask, do any of these come as swangas?
I went with Basilica of San Zeno, because they look structurally the strongest, and also the easiest to clean.
Chartres cathedral you messed up the naming convention.
I’m pretty sure the bar is spanners not spinners.
Notre Dame looks like a deck of cards all clubs. Betting is going to hell.
2. You have basilica of vanilla ice cream cones
3. Forget it to they all suck only chartres cathedral is fancy religion.
For goods sake Jason if you are going to have 6 variations Keep them in the same order. I voted for the wrong one because different order. All the names are similar but different get yourself an editor to set up everything in a sane manner
Except for San Zeno, they all look like spinner hubcaps.