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!
I feel if you’re going to have ornate rims like that, they need to be on a Donk. Fancy rose window rims need to be at least 32 inches.
Make it a series! I want to see Brutalist wheels for the electric! Mid century revival for the minivan!
I feel like if you sold these with some RGB Halos already inside the rim for that ‘stained glass’ look you could make a fortune
And Chartres for sure, wouldn’t want my Westminsters to be confused with Pontiac snowflakes
As an automobile-owning human and/or aquatic mammal and an art history minor, this is the type of content that I live for.
Where’s the song writers at?
I’ll give you the yeast:
I’m rolling on Winchester Cathedral’s…
San Zeno, it’s the most automobile-looking. Keep in mind that I love teddy bear rims.
It’s a Fuches!
Voted Chartres because I can see them actually kinda working on some of the more elaborate Lowriders.
The Zeno looks like a wheel from GT4 to me
The one in Spoleto, Italy already looks like a nice 3-piece wheel.
Before I even read the article, it sure sounds like Torch is back, baby!!
This site needs David’s rationality? (in regards to other than car purchases/personal health and safety) and Jason’s gonzo mentality to thrive. I fear Matt is the the parent between two squabbling siblings. I say all of this out of love.
Quite true—and very adult of you.
But, I spent the week nursing dirty old equipment at an 80yo tire factory and am SO down for Torch Time this Friday 🙂
I’m fully down for full Torch, though my mindset is more David.
It’s hard to tell if the meds are wearing off or finally kicking in.
As others have noted, context matters, and fate’s Caprice could easily have steered me across the Channel towards Chartres or Notre-Dame. But, while a couple of guys might disagree, I wasn’t fond of the one from San Zeno because of both the structure and the light color of the construction material, durable though it must be. Instead I had to choose Westminster Abbey’s – perhaps such a wheel on the Princess might have saved British Leyland from its ultimate fate.
What are your thoughts on stabilizer bars? Personally I’m not into spending big bucks on non-alcoholic cocktails. Just seems pointless.
Notre Dame looks great; I’m just not sure the Caprice is the right car for that.
Basilica of San Zeno, I’d honestly be surprised if something close to that doesn’t exist already.
St Paul’s, the only I’m not really feeling.
Westminster, as has been mentioned, feels very 70’s Pontiac snowflake.
Chartres, like Notre Dame, maybe on a different car I could see it.
Yeah, I’m going Westminster.
What are your thoughts on the Ronal Teddy Bears?
Agree St Paul’s is the only one leaving me cold.
Not every car can pull off Teddy Bears, but the right car… *chef’s kiss*
Are you suggesting a Cathedral use a Teddy Bears design for the rose window?
Looking again, the San Zeno is almost a Fuches!
Have to disagree on St. Paul’s. While not my 1st choice (I unknowingly went along with the crowd and voted Westminster), St. Paul’s is a nice classic 8-spoke design with a little extra flourish at the ends of the spokes. Would work well on older 4-lug cars.
Came here to read this! Yes, they look like gold snowflakes on a Trans Am
This. This is why I have an Autopian membership. Yeah, I like the other writers and their content just fine. But nobody is as bonkers as Torch.
Don’t ever change, Torch! Keep that aorta armored up tightly!
This is peak Torch absurdity.
Stay gold…
St Christopher votes for San Zeno.
I never knew that the intersection of cathedral architecture and after-market alloys was a place I wanted to spend my time, but this is fantastic. I would much rather pimp my ride with any of these gothic rims than one of those revolver shift knobs. In fact, why do you have to use the same rose on all four corners?
I can also see this working the other way – next time we lose a cathedral rose window to fire, let’s replace it with a giant BBS Super RS.
It is scary how much I’m reminded of ’80s BBS wheel design by these. I love it.
you know this begets the cathedral rose shift knob …
this is so absurdly good
I think I like the Chartres Cathedral the best…those would look badass as donks…they’re just filled in so nice. It was that or Westminster Abbey which also look awesome
I unironically like these. Everything’s gotten too slab-sided and modern, bring back weird details and flourishes! So, of course, it’s gotta be the Chartres.
The BDSM version would be called the Catherine Wheelie Bar.
Christ, that was a dark wikipedia hole :-/
Since I don’t want any of them, I chose Chartres Cathedral because they’d be a nightmare to clean and keep clean 🙂
No fair, I can only judge the low-profiles on an Escalade, and shrunken down for a high-sidewall on, say, a Ferrari 250 GT.
Oh man – I like the more modern looking San Zeno and the classic Westminster’s best. May come down to what car they are mounted on. The Chartres look good on a B-body Caprice though.
This is the kind of content we come here for. Hit me.
Westminster Abbey, with some deep dishes, on a slammed LS430.
Westminster Abbey gave me immediate Jeep snowflake wheel vibes.
My thought was the 70’s Pontiac snowflake (AKA Bandit) wheels.