What happened to 949 Racing?

Streetwiseguy said:

Personal thoughts from an old guy, but any wheel that has spokes standing proud of the edge of the wheel is a useless piece of E36 M3, and should be melted down and recast as a quadrajet,  because that would be less irritating to the guy with the tire machine.

None of these do that. 

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

The Coto is close enough to irritate me.

There's a big difference between flush and proud. Looks like the coto is in the former camp. The 949 crew knows what a PITA the Advanti Storm is both to mount and to race. 

Good to see you're working on new designs.  I've always loved the 6UL, and the new version looks great.

Out of curiosity, why did you destroy the old tools?  Why not just move them to a more trustworthy factory?

TVR Scott said:

Good to see you're working on new designs.  I've always loved the 6UL, and the new version looks great.

Out of curiosity, why did you destroy the old tools?  Why not just move them to a more trustworthy factory?

They were in China. We investigated moving them to Taiwan but we had no guarantee a new factory there would be able to use them in their machines. Would have cost a bunch to move them. As an expedient, we had them cut up and recycled on the spot.

WRT to  spokes being proud of the flange, no 949 Racing wheel ever has been or will  be built that way. Valves sit protected too, always. As I am fond of reminding folks, the Racing in our name is real. We have a very successful race team, created our own racing & time trial series and that DNA is in every thing we do. 

Having spokes near the flange comes down to necessity on many new cars. Not unusual for some new high performance cars to need a 9 or 10" wheel with a +50 or +60 offset, with clearance for 380mm rotors and huge radial mount 6 pot calipers, all from the factory.  Attaching the spoke to the drop center as they are in the 6UL just isn't mechanically possible for those applications. Like the rest of you, we all love that lip on the 6UL but to fit certain cars, we simply had to toss that feature and design around the brakes and suspension components for some of the platforms we plan to build wheels for.