I think I just made a horrible mistake. I painted my wheels black. They were in terrible shape, and I thought I would make my XJS look 'mean' by painting them black. The wheels came out great, but when I put them on the car...UGH! Somebody please tell me that I didn't really mess up. To make matters worse, I pulled out my spare, which I don't think has ever left the trunk. It is in immaculate shape and showed me what my wheels should look like. Arghhh!

 

Here are the offending wheels

 

OMG that looks horrible. Not just on your car, on any car. Looks like a cab.

I'm hoping there's someone out there, who restores wheels, that can help you.

You should have done just one first...that would have helped you out.

I was hoping you destroyed the uglier wheel on the facelift, but nope, you destroyed the nice set.

 

I think what they need is a contrasting color on the outer portion of the rim. I did something similar with my Lister "Macho" wheels. I painted the whole rim dark metallic grey thinking the same as you that they would look more agressive. Once I did the outer rim in a light silver it woke the wheels up and really made them look great.

 

Not a bad idea. Perhaps the chrome around the edge would brighten it up and make it look less cheap.

 

I like them. I also like Oddrod's idea if it is not too expensive to achieve (back to silver around the outer rim, but not chrome). The Porsche 944 had that look and it always appeals to me.

Can you put up some more pics of the car as you would normally photograph it, ie not focussing on the wheels?

 

Scuff the black up and put a couple of coats of a nice dark grey metallic on them. The black will make an excellent base for that colour and it'll look much better.

 

I agree, you need something like a silver stripe around the rim edge to seperate the black tire from the black rim. Just something to break it up.

If that still doesn't work, as mentioned, you can use the black as a base coat for another color.

 

I have these same rims, but I put them on an 82 and does it look sharp. These are the best looking, stock rims jaguar made for the xjs. Your rims are blending into the color of the entire car and no longer stand out to accentuate the wheel areas. Remove the paint. Steel wool the rims in the circular motion that they were originaly cut that is, if they aren't damaged anywhere. Tape the outside off (painfully time consuming) respray the original silver on the inner part of the spokes. Then tape off the tire and clear the whole rim three times. You'll love it, trust me. Plus if you ever want to sell them, they will be restored stock rims and valuable. Of cource, this is just my opinion. Bud

 

I was going to mark "no" on the ballot, but I don't agree with the stupid human being part. I think what you did is cool, you are experimenting in making your ride custom. I do think that you should return these wheels to their original state. An option for you could go with the black mesh wheels with a chrome lip to set them off. They would look pretty nice and understated on your car. Good luck.

 

This would work if you were going for the rat rod look, but your Jag is far too nice. You tried something new. Plenty of good advice here, especially roughing up the black and going with some shade of grey.

At least you had the guts to post pics

 

The 5 spoke are my favorite type of XJS wheels also. I like the original silver, but I agree yours would look with some silver around the perimeter of the rim.

 

Nothing that can't be fixed, though







All black wheels are fine for the mean look. Unfortunately, an XJS convertible is the wrong subject car for the mean look.

Your car is a stylish personal luxury convertible. Think "elegant". Think "country club" or "yacht club" and you'll be right on target. It's not a serious, agressive, high performance road machine and simply painting the wheels black won't change that.

A coupe might be a better jumping off point for the mean, aggressive look. It's just my own prejudice/imagery creeping in but whenever I see a convertible anything (Bimmer, Jag, Corvette, whatever) I think of pleasant weekend drives and pretty ladies. Serious/mean/aggressive road machines have fixed roofs!

All IMHO, of course; just my analysis. Not meant as a criticism. I'm a big believer in "to each his own".





You messed up !

But we've all been there at one time or another, I reckon. Jaguar styling is not easily tampered with and wheels should never be the sole focal point of any car. The last thing you want is for someone to look at your car and notice *only* the wheels.

Subtle changes seem to work best. It's very easy to go overboard.

Cheers
DD

 

"Subtle changes seem to work best. It's very easy to go overboard."

I agree whole heartedly! I like changing my cars to "make them mine" so to say. The pre-face lift cars are very angular so adding round accessories often look out of place. For example: This ismy second XJS that the trip computer had failed. For me it was more of a novelty anyway so I thought I'd replace it with a useful gauge. The XJS's already have volt, temp and oil pressure so adding another redundant gauge seemed a waste. What I settled on is an air/fuel ratio gauge. I imagined what it might look like with a blanked off panel and a round gauge and it just didn't fit with the overall style of the factory. Look at all the other gauges in your car. How many are round? The only 2 I can think of re the speedo/tach and they are in squared off pods. What I finally decided on was this gauge AFR Gauge Air Fuel Ratio Meter w/ DUAL DISPLAY to Narrowband 1-4 wire O2 Sensor GAUGE ONLY : Amazon.com : Automotive
I mounted it in a simple brushed black panel I carved from a piece of delrin. It actually looks like it belongs there ad if you didn't know what the stock interior looked like you would be hard pressed to tell.
Just my .02

Rob

 

Just did this. Now Im gonna do one with a more graphite metal finish and see which one I like best before doing all four. Live and learn.

 

That looks much better! How does it look on the car?

 

Also, I found a guy here in Norfolk that says he can get them looking brand spanking new for $200/corner. I may have to go that route. Strange as it may seem, my wife would have less problem with me spending $800, then she would have if I was cooped up in my workroom for 4 days doing it myself. Four young kids running around.

 

Like tirefriar, I don't like either of the polling options.

I would have checked "I wanted to try something that hadn't been done before and I'm not afraid to try it" option.

I see your efforts, plus your willingness to post the results and potentially take a lot of abuse as a great plus for the XJS forum. I have seen a lot of things on here that I had never thought of to do to my XJS, until I saw it here. Of course there are also things that I have seen here that only confirmed what I thought, ie I wouldn't like that on my XJS.

I recently posted about fitting a 7" Single DIN DVD system to the XJS, mainly because I didn't think it could be done until I tried it and I wanted to show other members just in case they were thinking about doing it. I also did the same with my dog box I recently made. Luckily I didn't get any abuse, but potentially there could have been some.

I say keep trying things and keep posting.......

 

saw your post on the DVD. Fantastic. I was sad, cause I just bought an Alpine BT stereo and all new speakers. I couldn't justify going and buying another stereo.