For the last several years, I've been lucky enough to live in warm climates that allowed for the use of summer tires year-round. I've generally run whatever autocross tire I was using at the time on the street as well, both in season and out of season, which means that I've run my 17" APEX ARC-8 square set up as my only wheel, full-time, since I bought them a couple years ago.
I'm anticipating a move next summer to the Pacific Northwest, which means that I will no longer have the luxury of running one wheel/tire combo year-round if I intend to autocross in the summertime and daily drive safely in the (admittedly mild) winters. Rather than switch out tires twice a year, I decided to pick up a set of "street" wheels, on which I will likely run all-season tires, and reserve my ARC-8's for autocross and track days.
Impressed with the quality, cost, and performance of my current APEX wheels, it wasn't long before I looked to them for a suitable street wheel. I came across the
AERO-7 wheels, and was immediately impressed: stylistically, they remind me a little bit of my old Style 216's - although they are much lighter - and I like that they're a little bit different than the mesh CSL-style wheels that everyone (myself included) seems to have. The fact that they were designed from the ground-up in 1er-specific fitments was a big plus, since, as many of you know, aftermarket wheel fitment can be a challenge with this chassis.
Originally, I was going to try and go for a square set up again, but I would've had to run 225 series tires all the way around, and I decided against that. Ultimately I decided to run the wheels as they were designed, which is a staggered set up of 18x8.5" in front with 225-series tires, and 18x9" in back with 255 -series tires. In this application, as a daily driven street wheel, I decided I could sacrifice some of the performance benefit of my square set up (17x8.5" wheels with 245-series tires). In other words, for normal street driving well below the limit, a little more show than go is okay.
Then I discovered the AERO-7 had been discontinued by APEX, mainly due to poor sales, I think. This was disconcerting, because I wasn't planning on buying my street wheels until late 2016. I checked APEX's stock, and sure enough, they were low in every finish. In fact, you couldn't get a complete set in any single finish. But the wheels were discounted by about 20%.
So rather than wait until next year and look around for
another set of lightweight wheels in ideal fitments at an affordable price, I decided to pick up a set of mismatched AERO-7's on sale. I would have to have them refinished to match, of course, but the benefit to that was that I could do so in any color I wished.
Lately I've become enamored of ceratin matte and satin bronze finishes I've seen around, often on HRE and VMR wheels. After selecting a powder coater, I sent off to
Prismatic Powders for a handful of different color swatches.
It's hard to decide on a color based on pictures on the internet. The color your seeing may not be at all accurate, and is so dependent on camera settings, lighting conditions, viewing monitor, etc. Not only that, but the style of the wheel itself I think can affect the way a color is perceived - for example, the same color may look slightly different on thin spokes versus on the barrel of the wheel. So I took the color swatches into different lighting conditions, and tried to decide what looked the most "right." A couple days ago, my powder coater sent me a pic of the end result; here's an APEX AERO-7 in Triple Bronze:
To be honest, sometimes I look at it and it's perfect, and other times I think it's not
quite what I had in mind. Like I wish it was a little darker, or a little flatter, or something. I'm reserving final judgement for when I can unbox the wheels and see them in person (this pic was under fluorescent lighting, by the way).
Here's a Photoshopped version with what looks to be a more accurate white balance, and the color looks truer to the swatch I previewed. If the wheel comes out this way, I think I'll be very happy: