Carlsson 3/6 by OZ RACING, Mercedes R129 Fitment. A study in massiveness

I have said that before, wheels might be round, when it comes to desirability they all fit in a pyramid.

That is especially true for Carlsson.

That company has been through a lot lately, however in Japan it is still popular as the company made the odd decision to start building wheels in 5×114.3 PCD (ubiquitous in Japan) as soon as the early 2000s and you’ll find Carlsson brochures and dealers ready to sell you the latest creation (preferably with an unreasonable amount of spokes).

But let us go back, as we often do on this here site, to the 1990s.

Back then the name of the game was simple : bigger, wider, heavier.

OZ Racing had started making 3 piece wheels for the 2nd generation W124 coupe Hammer (8.5 x 17 ET 30) and seeing that the demand was there, started making those for W126 cars (FRONT 8.5 x 17 ET 17 REAR 10 x 17 ET 18). Luckily, those wheels were bolton on the new generation of SL cars, the R129.

But a new decade called for a new gold standard. A 17 inch wheel is all well and good but it feels a bit, decade old.

In the early 90s every major wheel manufacturer was scrambling to make OE 18 inch wheels.

When i say major of course i think Speedline, OZ and BBS. Oh and Ronal too when they are done napping.

Speedline was working on the sublime Modular for the Ferrari 512M (one of the last wheels that are still eluding my grasp), but also the 3 piece wheels for the 964 Turbo 3.6 and of course the 964 Cup.

Less sports oriented carmakers like BMW still had to provide undersized kicks for their high end GT cars like the E31 or Mercedes for the SL R129 pre facelift models.

The later cars were to get AMG Aeros and AMG Style Is both in 18 inches later on.

That is the kind of situation the aftermarket thrives on.

This leads us to the wheels in question, the range topping staggered 3/6s

First thing that springs to mind : those rears are beefy.

It feels like OZ built the fronts with some asinine mid 30 offset just so that the deep dish of the rears would pop even further.

And pop they do.

Yup, just picturing these wheels at the back of a widebody R129 or even a 500E, that is some solid hips extension right there.

But the show does not stop there. To some extent the AMG aero is a variation of the classic 5 spoke design just with more beef inside.

This 6 spoke design is a variation of a variation. For having moved those wheels around quite a bit i can say the spokes are extra thick.

The backside looks just as hefty especially the hub mating area.

All in all the scale confirms the impression : 12.5 kilos for the fronts 14.1 kilos for the rears.

Of course making lightweight 3 piece wheels is hard, as the number of moving parts increase.

If you like to compare oranges and apples you’ll likely point out that a similar specs (8.5 x 18) BBS RE (forged monoblock) is less than 9 kilos (thought only made later in that decade).

But that is not the point.

The point was that in September of 1995 you could have 18 inch blades on your Impala.

R129 Cars with engines converted by Carlsson, the CM60 for the base SL500 and the CM74 for the base SL600, didnt have any issue ferrying around that excess unsprung weight.

This closes a series of four set of wheels restored by Komatsu-san.

To be quite honest the financial math was never quite there as Komatsu-san level of exigence takes up a whole lot of time and that time never comes cheap, but this series wasn’t about that.

Most if not all my buyers also bought a piece of craftmanship; they were fully aware of it.

It wasn’t just an impulse buy, the ones that even I as a seller find myself questioning.

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