Minilite Wheels

[stig-swoosh]

Maybe somebody here can answer this,I'm curious about the developmental history of Minilite wheels.

The earliest example of the minilite style I could find were fitted to late 50's Cooper formula racecars:





Did John Cooper have anything to do with the classic 8-spoke design,or was it purely a Minilite concept?
Is this how Minilite started out, as a supplier to F1?

"THE original"


vintage magnesium minilite

modular minilite

As everyone here knows,the minilite design is one of the best wheels ever made...they have been copied & reproduced many different times in many different ways...here's a variety of minilite inspired designs:


Superlite


Alleycat


Revolution Minator


Rover sportspack


Panasport


Chaparral


Smoor


Ronal


Carroll Shelby



Vintage Wheel Works

GB


Compomotive ML


Watanabe


Watanabe "racing service"


Rota RB


König rewind


Western (the only pic I could find)

[Crazyswede]

I think it was just a strong design that people liked the looks of. There are plenty of other wheels out there that are just as strong or stronger that look different. I suspect the minilite spoked design was one of the earlier stronger shapes that looked good and offered good brake ventilation. It is definitely one of the few wheel shapes that looks on on pretty much any vehicle you put it on.

[stig-swoosh]

yeah,they'll make any car look good.

maybe the Minilites were an evolution of an
earlier Bugatti design?

[GRMPer]

I've got 1 Rial Minilite-esque wheel (see thread for pic)

Don't forget the factory Miata and MINI alloys that were Minilite copies.


Per

[stig-swoosh]

I've got 1 Rial Minilite-esque wheel (see thread for pic)

check!


...here's a few more :


Minilife



new-style Minilite



knock-off minilite


American Racing silverstone


ASA JH6


Jante minilight

Oddly enough, the official U.K. Minilite site doesn't have a history page as does it's Japanese sister site...here it is in that automatic translation mode...(ya gotta love "three passwords of toughness")
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.minilite.co.jp/history.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=5&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dminilite%2Bco%2Bjp%2Bhistory%26hl%3Den

...also of interest is this copyright infringement case
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/legal/decisions/1998/o23298.pdf

...an article from Hemmings
http://www.hemmings.com/hmn/stories/2006/09/01/hmn_feature27.html

definition found on automotive terms site...
Minilite:
A true magnesium wheel, developed for the mini in 1962 by nuclear engineer Derek Power on the basis of experience gathered with magnesium components in nuclear power plants. The Minilite started the boom in alloy wheels

[Geoff]

That Shelby you have in the original post isn't a Shelby, it looks like a Ronal... The hub flange on Shelbies are taller.

Are the Minilites 100% Magnesium? I wonder how they burn...

[stig-swoosh]

That Shelby you have in the original post isn't a Shelby, it looks like a Ronal... The hub flange on Shelbies are taller.

D'oh!
You're right...the most popular wheel on SAABRALLY
& I got the wrong pic! :lol:

Are the Minilites 100% Magnesium? I wonder how they burn...

The early ones were,I think you can still get 'em magged out,but costs big $$$$.....
haha,I've heard of "beach parties" when they burn old
VW blocks, 'pposed to be bright white fire?

[stig-swoosh]

This is from the auto-translation Japanese page,
I probably sound worse than this when I attempt
to write in Swedish! :lol:

History of glory of the mini- light/write was many,
became legend, was conveyed in the people and
reached the point where “it is called the wheel "
of The Winning Wheel " victory”. At that time with
the rally of RAC and FIA, from the original characteristic
other than the original steel wheel there was also a thing
that with regulation only the mini- light/write wheel
is used is permitted.

As for us, there is no intention excessively of talking many.
If it receives in everyone with interest and “conveys” with
the history of the mini- mini- light/write wheel in many
people and can receive you think as the happiness.

[Geoff]

haha, that's pretty funny if you read it with a Borat accent

A friend of mine happened to drop a roll of magnesium strip (2" diameter 1/4" width) in his pocket during chemistry class in high school. It made for a good time at a camp fire. "Is that the sun!?" "The cops are here! Run!" :lol:

[GRMPer]

24 and 36hp Volkswagen engine cases are hard to find these days..a lot of the old desert racers would use them as campfire "augmentation"

yikes.

[stig-swoosh]

Apparently,Derek Power was/is some kinda genius :

Derek Power set up Teltron Limited on 1 April 1963;
that same day he set up four other companies too.
This was no flamboyant gesture but a deliberate effort
to ensure that he had total control of his enterprise
from the start. "When I decided to leave Solus Electronic Tubes
after being refused production facilities for the tubes. I also
decided that I would never again risk being in a position
where anyone could upset my plans. I therefore decided
that I had to manufacture as much of the equipment as
possible myself. Logically, this led to the need to set up
other companies in support of Teltron: for instance. I had
spare machinery capacity to set up Tech Del to develop
and manufacture engineering products to use that capacity.
Derek Power has always been jealous of his freedom.
The youngest son of the managing director of the
Murphy group until it was taken over, he was only
persuaded to work within Murphy after graduating
from Imperial College when he was offered a job
designing control gear for nuclear power stations,
far removed from his father's prime area of interest.
His success lies in his ability to innovate logically and
to delegate successfully. This is shown not only by the
story of Teltron but also by Tech Del: "We were looking
for a product to which we could contribute some new
thinking, and decided to see what we could do about
solving the wheel breakages which were plauging Minis
in competitive motoring. We developed the entire range
of what is now the Minilite high performance wheel".
The wheel is used by many racing and rally teams.

But, if he set up manufacturing in '63,that leaves the Cooper
formula wheels with essentially the same design and being
used in the late 50's...now I'm becoming obsessed or something...
I gotta look into Cooper history & find out how their wheel
design came about...