Stephen Porter

Hi,

I recently purchased a 1987 944T with 19,000 original miles. It's pretty close to showroom condition and I'm considering selling it at some point, as I don't really feel comfortable driving it.

My question is about the BBS "basket weave" wheels that came with the car. I don't really know much about these wheels, but I have seen them on a fair number of 944's over the years. I don't think they were a factory option, but I really don't know. In talking to a friend he said that they were very light for the time and therefore a lot of owners purchased them as replacements for whatever they got from the factory.

If I were to keep this car though I would definitely replace them as they aren't really to my taste, although I think they look better on this color car than on most. I'd really like a set of Fuchs like those that were an option on the '86 944T's, but I believe those are simply not available for "late-offset" (post-1986) cars. I'd be interested in opinions of what the market might be for these with the 4 almost-new Toyo Proxes as I would be upgrading to 17" wheels if I go that route.

TIA for any and all info. (I'll try and post a pic of the car with the BBS wheels so you all can see what I'm talking about!)

DDP

Those BBS were a factory option I believe. I had them on my '87 951. Although mine were all silver and looked really good on a blue car.

pole position

No, and no again. And no for the last time.

reno808

i dont think they were. But i heard they are rear. i had the same wheels until i sold them. my .02

Ski

I had those of my car when I bought it too, very dated look, and I sold them as soon as I got home. 87 car, you can have your choice from $229 up to $1200 per wheel, just depends on budget. You can get Fuchs, well sorta, Lindsey does a wheel, check their website as I think they're $700 + per wheel and that puts you in custom Fiske and Kinesis territory, also RH, HRE, lots of others.

The Cup and Turbo Twist replicas are not bad from Tire Rack if budget is a concern.

toddk911

I have those exact wheels on my 87. Of course, I was not too keen on the gold so mine are painted all black now.

I'd buy the center caps from you though

Question: I assume if yo uare selling so fast it is a situaiton where you will make some mone yon the sale? As that condition and miles is certainly a KEEPER.

Stephen Porter

If anyone is reading or interested, I've gotten the scoop on these wheels, directly from BBS. They are "RS" models, sold from early '80's and discontinued in 1995. 7J & 8J x 16 HR 2 ET 49. 3-piece, forged, lightweight. A further interesting note is that if one wants to refinsih, paint, polish the lips, whatever you can have that done and then send them back to BBS in Georgia and they will assemble them properly and provide all new bolts for $75/wheel. I was also told by a wheel shop here in Los Angeles that VW modders really like them and will snap them up whenever they appear in auctions, etc. So maybe I will have a down payment for some more authentic wheels after all...

toddk911

WOW!

Cool info.

Stephen Porter

Also...original price was $650 + -- per wheel. So they are not junk wheels by any stretch of the imagination! That said, they are a bit dated looking and wouldn't be my first choice.

JoeN951

Maybe I'm biased because I've got them with the silver centers on my car and they don't believe they look any more dated then the car does. Mine even had Porsche crests on the center caps, but I had to get the BBS logo as a replacement, because the crest ones don't exhist after Porsche clamped down on the use of their logo.

Todd...check out speedwaremotorsports.com. They are a BBS dealer and were very helpful when I was looking for replacements.

944CS

$75 a wheel?! Will they do Etoile 2 pieces at that price?!

billthe3

I saw this while doing my daily ebay browsing, so I thought you might be interested - its a set of the 4 gold bbs wheels (I have them on my car too ) for sale with new tires going with a BIN price of $1200. I realize you most likely don't have new tires on yours, but its still interesting to see that the wheels might sell for that much.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...RK%3AMEWA%3AIT

Oh, upon more reading I noticed they're selling with a second set of new bbs logos for the center caps. It looks like he's asking pretty high though.

gregeast

My car came with the gold RS's as well. It was missing BBS badges and one of the center caps was damaged but I've managed over the past year or so to piece together the missing parts from Ebay, etc.

I think I have 3 extra BBS center caps, and two extra gold, thread on center caps, one that is whole and one that has a broken center lock 'bolt'. Obviously, I've cherry picked the best pieces and parts to keep but none of it is in bad shape, I just ended up with extras because I'd have to buy, for example, 4 center caps when I only needed 2, etc.

If any of this would be useful to you guys, let me know. I can take some pics if that helps. While I don't want to give the parts away, I'm not looking to make a killing on these either...these wheels are in questionable enough taste these days that they need to at least be complete!

toddk911

yes, Greg, some pics would be great!

gregeast

Ok, probably won't get to it until this weekend.