BBS

Saturday, Sep 26, 2026 · 810 words · approx 3 mins to read

I mentioned in the post about Westermann Motorsport and the one about the first planned modifications that I was going to get a set of BBS wheels for the Seven from Westermann that I couldn’t wait to get on the car.

They’re a staggered set, 7.0x13” ET21 at the front and 8.0x13” ET9 at the rear, with a forged CNC-milled centre, 3-piece overall construction, and each one weighs less than 5kg (4.818kg at the front, 4.697kg at the rear, with valves). I think they’re absolutely beautiful and had no hesitation buying them despite the astronomical cost.

There’s something about how that overall style of BBS wheel looks that evokes a classic motorsport look for me, especially with their split construction and those gold centres and when paired with a tyre with a proper sidewall to it.

Although recently I’ve had an oopsie and introduced half of the set of wheels to the scenery during a small off, I got them in late July ahead of getting the car and managed to get them shod with Nankang AR-1 tyres so that they could go on the car the day after I collected it.

The reason I chose AR-1s is that they’re available in 205/60 and 185/60 at 13”, and that 60 profile gives them a fat sidewall which I was very keen to try as part of a the road-focused wheel/tyre setup I wanted to put together with the BBS wheels.

The roads around where I live, where I spend most of the time with the car, are hellishly surfaced in places which means I have to ask the car to ride over some really uneven surfaces featuring some very chunky dips.

A fatter tyre helps with that, as does a reduction in overall unsprung mass, and at 7.1kg for an AR-1 at the front and 8.4kg at the rear (nearly 2x the weight of the rear wheel!), combined with the light weight of the wheels, means the total package rides so much better than the setup that originally came with the car. And they look so good, even against the current Kawasaki green paint of the car.

The combination of fatter sidewall and ~6kg of unsprung mass reduction versus the original setup of 6.5x15” Caterham Orcus wheels all round, with a pair of 195/50 R15 Avon ZZS on the rear and a pair of Toyo R888R in the same size on the front, was immediately felt on my first drives on the BBS + AR-1 combo and I’ve been relishing it ever since.

I think I notice it more because of the stiff (350lb/in) spring rate the car currently rides on, which means the unsprung mass moves more before the spring (and then damper) do. So over roads where the suspension is working hard as the wheels and tyres ride over a shitty surface, there’s an outsized contribution to the overall ride quality from the wheels and tyres, because they’re the first part that moves, which the suspension then translates into the secondary ride qualities you feel through the car.

Coming back the looks, I’ve always had a vision of my ideal Seven. While I really do enjoy the green and orange now that I’ve lived with it for a while, it’s not what I’d choose if I was specifying the car from new. Reds really work with gold, as do dark greys, but Simon Hoade’s car is a beautiful red and I’ve already taken enough inspiration from his car as it is, and greys are maybe a little too boring for a car like a Seven.

So maybe a blue or green? Or possibly a blue that’s also a green depending on how the light hits it…