1LT "Bavarian Silver" 18's, what Chevy missed...

[ALLTRBO]

...and how to fix it.

I fell in love with this wheel option well before the Camaro production started, as I took part in a factory options poll for potential customers. I'm an IROC-Z junkie, I've had 3, the last one I twin-turbo'd before I had to sell it in part to buy my 5thgen. :( .
So naturally, when I saw that Chevy was considering an 18 inch "1 line" IROC-Z style wheel for the 5thgen, I voted for it as my highest priority. I really wanted that sentimental 3rdgen throwback on my future car.

So here I am with my new sweet black 2010 1LT/RS, and I swapped my RS 20's (which are for sale) for these 18's, but with a better plan. What I also had noticed was that Chevy obviously didn't care to go the extra mile with these wheels, and left them looking nearly like cheap plastic. They didn't even do that to the 80's wheels! Bah, here's the easy, quick fix. 3M matte black automotive vinyl sheets. I have a roll sitting here on my desk waiting to go on.
I do think that later on I'm going to completely strip, polish, and clear-coat the wheels (adding the matte-black back in afterward), then they'll look darn near identical to the IROC-Z polished wheels, only better. "Bavarian Silver"? Hah!
As a huge bonus, these wheels are by far the lightest offered on any 5thgen (reducing unsprung weight is very important for optimizing handling), they offer a better ride and the best steering feedback, and widening the rears by 1-2" won't cost much at all. Add good performance tires, and we're set!

So vote for your favorite 'style change'. I know which one I'm going to do already (not the one in my avatar) thanks to the miracle that is Paint Shop Pro 9, but I'm just curious to see what all of you think. They aren't drastically different from each other, but it's the small details that make the difference!
There are more changes I can make still (reversing the centercap colors for example), but I'll leave it to this for now. No, I will never paint them all black, or even all black with a polished lip. Sorry spare-tire-wannabe fans (no offense).


They are in order from style 1 to style 8. Only the rear wheel is 'shopped, the front is stock so ignore it or imagine that it looks the same.

So, lemme know which one you'd choose! Comments welcome.

[buddylok]

mad PS skillz!

I like 4 and 8

[Rogey89]

8 for sure! Looks awesome!

[ALLTRBO]

Thanks guys, and everyone for the votes so far. It's turning out to be what I expected.

I don't know about awesome PS skills, I've seen some people PAINT a whole picture like this in PS, and even in MS Paint!
I'm OCD so it takes me forever to get something 'right'. That being said, those pics above show glaring faults to me, but I had to consider them 'good enough' so I didn't waste all of my time PS'ing them, and none of my time actually doing it!

#7 is my first choice, though I think #8 would look pretty sweet too. We'll see maybe?

I did PS more than just the vinyl on the wheels, here's the original picture completely unadulterated, heh. I plan on doing just about all that you see above though (plus the #7 or #8 vinyl on the front wheels too, haha).

[ALLTRBO]

Also note that with the inner lip blacked out, the wheels appear to be larger. That in addition to the lowering will make these wheels look much less 'tiny' in relation to the size of the car.
I think properly styled 18's (a thinner outer lip and spokes that extend to the edges) look absolutely perfect on this size of car, and with the proper widths and tires they're better than the 20's for launching, accelerating (particularly at higher speeds) handling, steering feedback, and ride quality.
Oh, and EVERYONE has the 20's. Be different.
(You can disagree with me about the look if you'd like, aesthetics are purely subjective, but the physical benefits are real and undeniable. That being said, I'm glad we have plenty of choices for every taste for our cars!)

[ALLTRBO]

Thanks for all the votes. Any more comments?

[TJ91]

3 and 7

[ajt]

I would actually like to try doing something similar to 1 or 5 to mine. Does anyone make anything for those inserts such as vinyl or maybe laser cut plastic? Or is it something that I'm going to have to do myself?

[AZCamaroFan]

i don't know which i prefer, but if you're an IROC-Z fan, you must be alright!

[ALLTRBO]

I'm pretty sure that no one makes anything for these awesome wheels. I bought my vinyl sheets from stickercity.com and the quality seems great and it's not hard to use.

I got a set of polished 19's and they're on my car right now, so the 18's are going to get widened by an inch (then mounted onto 1" quality adapters), stripped to the bare aluminum (which has a machined face. read: awesome looking), and I'll have them clearcoated and put the gloss black vinyl on them in the #7 style. They'll get 265/50/18 Nitto 555's on them all the way around, which is the perfect balance for the 50/50 distribution of the V6. I'm going to lower it about 1" and add SS sway bars then call it a day. For so little suspension/chassis work, it'll handle amazingly (much much better than an SS), it'll still ride quite decently, and it'll have plenty of grip everywhere, and look cool to boot (IMHO).

They'll look similar to this (18's look so much larger on a thirdgen, huh?!):

[mastertypodemon]

Style 8, or Style 5. Either looks good to me.

[AZCamaroFan]

is that your IROC with 18''s?

[ALLTRBO]

No, ironically I had Corvette 17's on my IROC. The one above belongs to "Mr. IROC-Z" on thirdgen.org

Here's my old one. (My dream car that I built and recently had to sell. :( )

[jcamere94z28]

I think that 8 is your winner.