A couple of years ago while searching through craigslist for the usual tags I came across an ad marked something along the lines of “JDM Wheel Pair”. Thinking that I’d had some luck flipping pairs of wheels in the past I clicked that ad and looked a bit a further only to find a practically useless description and one completely indistinguishable pixellated photo. For $40 however, I figured it was still worth pursuing.

After a few texts back and forth with the seller, it turned out that the he was just down the street from me. I swung over, but as luck would have, found not a wheel pair of wheels but two completely different individual wheels in a mud covered mess. One wheel I quickly identified as an SSR EX-C. The other was a four spoke design, and total mystery to me. I didn’t think that anyone would want to buy these single wheels, but thought they would make cool display pieces so I picked them up anyways!

Checking the database here at the time, as well as all the other online resources I knew of, I had no luck identifying the 4 spoke wheel. A few years later I had purchased some vintage Motor Fan magazines off of Yahoo Auctions. I was flipping through the pages of the earliest one I had (from 1979) and one advertisement caught my eye. I quickly ran to the garage, grabbed the crusty mystery wheel and compared details. It was the Target Racing “TR-03”. My particular wheel was the 14 6J +15 size. I still have very little information on the Target Racing brand, and their various models of wheels. If wheels could talk it would be very interesting to know how it ended up just a few miles away from me after more than a 30 year-long journey.

I have always been a huge fan of SSR’s old school wheels. For months after I got my MK-3’s, I didn’t consider getting anything but SSR’s. At the time, I knew about some of the more rare classic Japanese wheels; Devil Japan Shadow Spokes, Hayashi Techno and Yayoi, TRD Tosco, Work Equips, etc, but I really didn’t have a desire to look deeper into the rare wheel market to find something truly unique and rare.

About 2 months ago, while browsing YAJ, I came across an SSR I had never seen before. A single 4 spoke, with the familiar oval “SpeedStar” logo on the end of one of the spokes and a decently large dent in the lip. Without hesitation I bid on the wheel, and watched the days count down to the end of the auction. With no other bids, I won the auction and waited for my package to show up on my doorstep.

When my wheel finally showed up I was amazed when I pulled it out of the box. It was far lighter than any other wheel I had ever held in my hands. I looked for clues as to what model this wheel was, but found nothing. I took pictures of it and posted it online in hopes of finding someone with information on the wheel. It took another month before I found out from @prkbkr on Instagram that the wheel is a Speed Star F.4. Without a doubt, this has supercharged my search for the rarest, raddest and oldest wheels out there.