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Marq: Does that mustang have 92-99 Pontiac Bonneville rims on it?


If so, were those painted with Rustoleum as well or how were they done? Or were they on the car when the PO had it?



Actually the story about the rims is kind of interesting. If you look at the BEFORE pictures of the McLaren ( when it was in its black paint job ) those are the original genuine McLaren rims.

They were custom made by ASC for the McLarens. The only problem with them is that they only had about a 1/2 lip of chrome. So there wasn't much depth or 'bling' to their appearance....

It turns out that back in 1988 the McLaren Mustangs were in competition with a rising star in the automotive history " SALEEN ".

McLarens were built for primarily appearance and touring. The Saleens were being built primarily for performance.

Well.. it turns out that in 1988 Saleen liked the look of the McLaren ASC rims. So they had their own version of the rims made... but the big difference was they had a 2 3/4 inch chrome lip on the rim - giving it more depth and bling.

Also.. the McLaren rim could accomodate up to a 225 wide tire at the most... the Saleen rim could accommodate up to a 255 wide tire...

So... imagine this. In 1988 a guy down in Florida ordered a brand new Saleen. When he received it, he immediately took those Saleen rims off and replaced them with the FIVE STAR Mustang rims ( which he thought were sexier ).

Spring forward to 1998... ten years after... and the original Saleen owner has gone through his garage and takes his stored rims out of their time capsule AND he put his UNUSED MINT 1988 Saleen rims on eBay...

I picked up the rims for the grand total of $120 for the FOUR RIMS... Unfortunately I had to pay roughly another $120 to have them packaged up safely and shipped from Florida to my home at the time in Pennsylvania.

And so goes the tale of how a brand new mint set of 1988 Saleen rims ended up on a 1988 McLaren.

And as for my 1988 McLaren rims... well I sold them almost instantly to another member of the McLaren registry for $120.

So the end result was that I was only out of pocket by $100 for the Saleen rims.

Ok... me bad. A 'true' McLaren fanatic would want to have kept the car all stock, with matching numbers and original parts. BUT I am a 'driver' and I want a car that fits me and my taste. I can't afford to be a purist or elitist ( heck a roller paint job alone would be enough to send McLaren purist running for a stiff drink of Scotch ).

Those Pontiac rims in your picture are 'sort of like' the McLaren rim ( with less then 1/2 inch of lip on them ).

It is funny that the Pontiac rim in your picture is almost the same style that I have on my GTA TransAM. But my GTA rims also have about a 2 1/2 inch deep chrome lip. From what I gather they only made the rims on my car for one model year.

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Last edited by Marq; 01/29/08 12:08 AM.