The hardcore Kyusha Shoe community was abuzz last weekend when one of the more interesting auction finds that I’ve ever come across appeared.  It was a set of un-used and still in boxes Volk C1‘s complete with tags and instruction manuals, and one of the two aero options for the wheels,  the flat Aero Caps.

This wasn’t the first peak we’ve had at new in boxes C1’s.  A few months ago, a reader from Sweden very graciously shared his set with us.  Launching in 1985, Rays Engineering called the C1 the “First Composite Wheel Made.”  The value of that statement might be debatable given that the wheel is essentially a conventional aluminum dish wheel with a CFRP sheet bonded to its face. However, with some great aerodynamic add-ons, an asymmetrical design and Rays Engineering’s incredible attention to detail, in our opinion, the Volk C1 is clearly among the greatest wheels ever to come out of Japan.

And so, some of us fans discussed and debated… wondering what this set of C1’s could possible sell for.

Ultra-high value Kyusha Shoes tend to belong to a different class of wheel than these C1’s.  They are generally ultra wide cast wheels from the seventies, or exquisite wire wheels.  In general, street sports-type wheels from the eighties and nineties don’t tend to command maximum dollars, especially in measly 7J width like these C1’s were.

With less than 24hrs remaining, the bid which had started at 1, 000 円 had made its way to 61,500 円 (about $600USD) and I was converting my Canadian dollars into Japanese Yen in preparation to take a stab.

A couple of months prior I had watched a set of new in boxes Super Volk‘s (a prequel to the C1 in an era when Rays was playing around with construction techniques) go for around 80,000 円.  I had expected those wheels to sell for a lot more than that, so I held optimism for the C1’s.

C1’s… that in my opinion, were missing the coolest part of the C1: the accessory option “Cooling Fins” which bolt to the wheel face to add cooling aero effects.  Surely they would still be more than 80, 000円, but when they were missing the best part they couldn’t possibly be more than double that number could they? I placed my bid.

… and promptly got obliterated.  The final selling price was a cool 297,000 円.

So my bid was meaningless, but it is interesting to see some great appreciation for an iconic wheel. That number puts them right in the ballpark with the most expensive set of Kyusha Shoes I’ve seen sell on auction (there’s an idea for a future post!).

“Hey look at these wheels I found, what are they worth?” is something that we find fairly often in our inboxes here.  Generally, I think our answers only disappoint those who ask.  We are talking about relatively simple pieces here that can be (and sometimes even are!) re-produced without incredible cost.  When however, they include boxes and documentation and demonstrate designs that were revolutionary at the time, that makes them truly historic pieces.

In that case, I like to imagine that the sky is the limit.

Since starting this website, the wheel info coming in has been overwhelming.  I’ve learned so much.  And I’ve also learned a lot about  how wheel enthusiasts around the world are buying and exporting wheels out of Japan.  I am lucky enough to have family in Japan that has helped me lots in the past with bidding on, receiving and shipping out my auction wins from YAJ or Rakuten.  Ten years into that however, I get the impression that wheel collecting is something I was supposed to have grown out of.  And as my mother in law ages, and my wheels get bigger and heavier, guilt starts to accumulate. I picture her carrying them up and down tight apartment stairwells, or down narrow sidewalks to the post office.

So when a number of you told me that you use Jauce.com to browse and purchase from YAJ, I thought I’d give it a go.

Now I’ve dabbled with other exporters in the past.  One single individual, whom I won’t name but rhymes with Messy Eater, has been great. However, when most of my purchases come from moments of boredom (like waiting in an airport for multiple hours), the ability to bid instantly myself is a huge win.  This is not something that is possible when your exporter is one dude who needs to send an invoice, then confirm payment before finally placing a bid himself… all from 15 time zones away.

Jauce, solves that problem with a website that lets you browse and bid on pretty much anything on YAJ… all in Google translated English.  Spontaneous purchases yay! And I don’t even have to worry about catching my in-laws off guard with a gigantic package sitting on their front door.

I’ve been using Jauce for the last year, on small items like books, magazines and small car parts/toys for kids.  Results have been great, although I have sometimes questioned overall costs.

I only recently used it to buy a set of wheels… and I think my questions about costs are answered now.

It IS expensive.

There are service fees at basically every step of the process. What you don’t see here, is that my 45000円 deposit was actually 46868円 out of my account.  Deposit money? Pay service fee.   Win an auction? Pay a fee.  Ship an item? Pay a fee. Make a withdrawal?  Pay a fee.

Now some of the fees listed here come from the actual seller, but by my math…

1868円 (deposit fee) + 4000円(auction win) + 2×4750円 (handling fee) + 2×2580円 (repacking fee) = 20528円 in Jauce fees.  That’s about $270CDN which seems pretty harsh, for what is probably no more than an hours work and a few yen worth of cardboard.  In all, my 16″ wheels, won for 45000円 cost me 90020円 shipped on a boat and arriving here in Calgary, Canada in probably 8 weeks.  That about $1200CDN which isn’t insane for what I got (new old stock Enkei RS-III), but I don’t have the same feeling of achievement that I’m used to having after a YAJ purchase.

Is the snazzy website worth it? Maybe if you really want what you’re buying.  If you are just trying desperately not to buy RPF1’s from Tire Rack then maybe not so much.  I think I probably need to exercise more patience and support my fellow hashirya who provide the same service without the fancy interface.

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.

A reader shared these ultra-rare AC Courreges ACB dish that recently came and quickly went on Yahoo Auctions. This is certainly the cleanest set I’ve seen! Sized 13 5.5J +38 with PCD100 they sold for 31000円.

Four hole Star Sharks are relatively common.  These five holes are on Yahoo Auctions this week.  If I’ve seen these before, I certainly can’t remember.  Seems like 15″ would be a more useful five bolt diameter though.

I’m getting lots of emails recently about buying things off Yahoo Auctions Japan, and I don’t have the ability to help you all individually. I can’t advise you much better on the condition of a particular item based on the written description much better than Babelfish, nor can I recommend an importer, but I can help you search and navigate. If you are keen to check it out, but can’t even find the wheel category from the main page: CLICK HERE.

By default, searches made will return results only from the current category, so start by limiting wheel diameter, and bolt number on the left most column. Then start searching. English characters work relatively well for a lot of searches. “SSR” for example, will turn pretty good results if you are looks for SSR’s, but if you are looking for Work wheels, and search “Work” the engine will only return a small percentage of the total number on auction because many Work wheels will be listed by our Japanese senpai using the katakana characters ”ワーク”. It’s typically best to search twice, using both roman characters and katakana.

Below are a number of common kyusha wheel searches that I do, as well as a couple of tricks that I’ve been unwilling to share with anyone until now. Copy and paste to your hearts content.

Advan – アドバン – Yokohama – ヨコハマ
Bridgestone – ブリチストン – Potenza – ポテンザ
Enkei – エンケイ
Hart – ハート
Hayashi – ハヤシ
Heroes – ヒーローズ
Hoshino – ホシノ or Impul – インパル
Manaray – マナレイ
Michelin – ミシュラン
Rays – レイズ – Volk – ボルク
Riverside – リバーサイド
Sharak – シャラク or シャーク (Shark)
SSR – Speed Star – スピードスター
Toms – トムス
Watanabe – ワタナベ
Weds – ウエッズ
Work – ワーク

Some other searches that also work well for me are below. A lot of times persistent searching can discover wheels that are mis-named by the seller, or simply listed as unknown or generic wheels.

Mesh – メッシュ
Center Lock – センターロック
Junk – ジャンク
Unknown – 不明
Light – ライト
Rare -　レア or 希
Aero – エアロ – Cover -カバー
Star -　スター
Shark – シャーク
Spoke – スポーク
Longchamp – ロンシャン
Mark – マーク
Race – レース – Racing – レーシング
Rally – ラリー
Gravel – グラベル
Formula – フォーミュラ
Equip -　エクイップ
Techno -　テクノ
Impul – インパル
Hachiroku – ハチロク
Hakosuka – ハコスカ – Kenmeri – ケンメリ
Nostalgic – 当時
Old Car -旧車
Yayoi – ヤヨイ or 弥生

The wheel search isn’t going so well. So much so, that I’ve almost decided to go with boring Enkei RP01’s again. They’re good light, strong, affordable wheels but it’s pretty hard to love any car that sits on an ordinary five spoke. It’s also pretty hard to find an upgrade for my Speedlines that isn’t already on the Subaru down the street. The only answer might be OEM wheels from obscure JDM models/option packages that never made it across the big ocean… that or do a 5×114 conversion and get some old SSR’s.

Mind you, it’s not 2009 again, when our dollar hit almost 110円, but 95円 feels so so much better than 75円 that I really can’t hold back.

Somebody buy these Hornets!!! And if not them, there are tonnes of other rad kyusha wheels around right now.

Someone recently emailed me about these shoes found on yahoo auction: definitely the unicorn of kyusha wheels. No idea what he paid, but I know what he could sell them for and who might buy them. Rad stuff. There is very little documentation on stuff this old (1981-1985ish), and of this variety very very few are still in existence. In close to ten years of searching I never once saw a set like this for sale, and only knew of their existence because of one shakotan RA21 seen in DoriTen. At that point I didn’t notice any stampings on the wheel face. Here we see SS-07-14… where SS denotes Super Star, 07 denotes the sub-model number and 14 the wheel diameter. This particular set is 14 9J -16 and seems to be in original condition, wheel weight of 5.65kg/each also indicates that even 30 years ago Japan knew how to make a light wheel.