Five years ago, I wrote a fluffy little piece called “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Gold Basketweaves.” In it, I detailed how, in 2009, I bought a set of gold 14-inch basketweaves that were an option on late E30 convertibles, put them on a slightly patina’d ‘Agave 2002 I’d bought, and took them off before I sold the car. They passed among a veritable gaggle of 2002s before they wound up on Bertha, easily the rattiest car I own. I don’t really like the blingy-wheels-on-distressed-car look, but it’s not like Bertha was bagged and slammed and sitting on 18-inch low-profile donk-rollers that were stuffed under big flared wheel wells. She came by this look somewhat organically. And it wasn’t a bad look. It was sort of the cherry on the sundae of the car’s being bought back from my friend Alex, resurrected, road-tripped, and put on her Cinderella slippers for her coming-out party. (See Resurrecting Bertha for the full story.)
Bertha, at The Vintage in 2019, looking resplendent in her gold shoes. (photo by Brian Ach)
I thought that would be the beginning of my new adventures with Bertha, but that wasn’t the case. That same year, I resurrected my 1974 Lotus Europa Twin Cam Special, which sucked much of the oxygen out of the automotive room, as well as much of the money out of my bank account. Bertha hasn’t had another road trip since. It’s been sitting for a few years in the warehouse where I rent space in Monson on the MA/CT border. In the spring and fall I’ll take it for a spin and run it the five miles back and forth to the border, as well as get it inspected annually. The last time I did this, the car ran like crap, feeling like one of the Weber 40DCOEs wasn’t delivering any fuel. Thus, while I pride myself on having all of my (now 14) cars running, Bertha is “running” in name only. I don’t think I could drive it the 75 miles from Monson back to my house without first troubleshooting what’s wrong with it. And so it sits.
As I wrote last fall, when I bought the FrankenThirty and peeled away the first layer of the onion of sort-out issues, I still couldn’t safely drive it on its ancient cracked tires. So I put it up on the mid-rise lift, yanked off the worthless bottlecaps and dry-rotted 195/65R14 rubber, loaded them in the E39, shot out to Monson with the wheels and a small floor jack, swapped them for Bertha’s gold basketweaves and 15-year-old 195/60R14 General Altimax tires, and threw those on the E30. Not only did I love the fact that the gold ‘weaves that originally were from an E30 convertible had “come home” to another E30, I instantly loved the way they looked against the car’s red paint (how 80s can you get?). And, while the Altimax tires were old and their 60-series aspect ratio was a little short for the E30, the wheels and tires made the car safe and drivable for zero cost. Unfortunately, this left Bertha on basically undrivable tires, but it was only intended for the short term, during which the car wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling.
Having said all that, I want to be clear about something. It’s one thing to drive a car leisurely around town (or even back and forth to Monson) on 15-year-old tires if they show no signs of cracking. It’s quite another to toss it around entrance ramps, much less drive it the 2,000 round-trip miles to The Vintage, as I hope to do next month. (Plus, I’ll admit that I took an entrance ramp on the FrankenThirty a little enthusiastically, the Altimaxes reacted like old hard rubber does, and I thought “Yeah, let’s not do that again.”) So, over the winter, when I saw a set of Peltas 195/65R14 tires online for $230 shipped, I clicked and bought. They’ve been sitting in my basement.
Of course, I didn’t want to leave Bertha sitting on the garbage tires and execrable pockmarked clearcoat-peeling bottle wheels off the FrankenThirty indefinitely. Even safety notwithstanding, with the car’s lowered suspension its tall 65-series tires were in danger of hitting the fender lips. So when I found a set of hundred-dollar silver E30 basketweaves over the winter on Facebook Marketplace, I drove up to southern NH to snag them, figuring that, when the time came, I’d swap the now-15-year-old Altimaxes onto them, put those wheels on Bertha, and mount the new Peltas tires on the gold basketweaves.
A 2002 and E30 owner simply can’t pass up a hundred-dollar set of E30 basketweaves.
In addition to the E30’s and Bertha’s tire-swapping needs, while swapping my E39’s winter wheels for the summer ones, I discovered that one of the summer tires had a nail in it that was too close to the sidewall to be repaired. I bought a matching used tire on eBay, and needed to have it swapped for the punctured one. I have a friend who has one of those mobile tire vans and does all this in my driveway, so I scheduled one appointment for all these needs.
Then, something surprising happened. I saw an ad on Facebook Marketplace for a set of four E30 steel wheels with garbage tires on them for $30. I confirmed with the seller that that price was for all four, and said that I wanted them. Unfortunately, he said that he wasn’t available that day. I explained that I kind of needed them immediately because a tire van was coming to my house the next morning. It turned out the wheels were at his father’s house, he put me in touch with him, and I shot down and picked them up. The wheels were rusty and covered in dirt and leaves, but they had no obvious damage, and they felt like a better match to the old Altimaxes than the silver basketweaves.
Not bad for two hours driving, $30, and an eighth of a tank of gas.
When I got the steelies home, I stood them up in the driveway and washed them. This revealed that they had less rust than I expected. I thought “Hmmmmn, I wonder…” and spent half an hour with a drill and a wire wheel. I liked the result, so I hunted around in the basement and found the cans of wheel silver from when I sprayed Hampton’s wheels. The fact that the tires were going to be thrown away allowed me to be wonderfully sloppy.
As my friend Bob Sawtelle said, “We used to use painter’s tape and playing cards. I guess you rich guys use Goodyears.”
In the morning, I staged everything in the driveway for the tire van. Well, not everything; my Lotus Elan +2 still had dibs on the mid-rise lift, so I needed to jack up the E30 and pull wheels off it one end at a time. My friend Jay came by with his mobile tire van and knocked off the swap.
Once you’ve used this service, man it’s hard to go back.
I know that swapping 15-year-old tires onto another set of wheels may raise an eyebrow, but my logic was that these were the same tires that Bertha was already sitting on, in my opinion they’re still fine for the car’s current operating range of a few miles around the Monson warehouse, and if I plan to road-trip it further (for which I’d first need to fix whatever is ailing it), I’d re-rubber it.
A fine rattle-canning, don’t you think?
But as I looked at the freshly rattle-canned steelies and imagined putting them on Bertha, I remembered something: Bertha at one point had silver E30 steelies on it. It was after the 2019 trip to The Vintage. I was never convinced that the gold ‘weaves really belonged on the car. I happened into a set of E30 steelies for short money, bought new tires, and dedicated that setup to Bertha.
The zero-bling solution. Utilitarian. Like Bertha.
But in 2022 when I bought “Carter,” the essentially rust-free 1976 2002 with a noisy bottom end, the steelies and fresh rubber got cleaved off Bertha. I initially entertained the possibility of using Carter for an M20 engine swap, but its diesel-sounding mill was tamed by a set of rod bearings. I then did some other light sorting-out, and I decided that the effort-to-financial-return curve would never be more favorable than right at that moment, so I sold the car. When I bought Carter, it had a set of Alpina 13-inch wheels and homicidally dry-rotted tires on it. It needed decent rubber on it to be driven even short distances, and the Alpinas were worth quite a bit, so I sold them separately. But that meant that other wheels needed to take their place. So Bertha lost her E30 steelies and fresh rubber, and I slipped her pretty gold shoes back on her feet.
Carter with its pricey Alpinas.
And, at sale time, wearing Bertha’s stolen shoes.
If one is going to name cars as I do, one is anthropomorphizing them. So one can wonder if they are happy, annoyed, depressed, whatever, about having their wheels yanked off them like they’re just tubs of spare parts. Bertha has actually had more wheels on her than any car I’ve ever owned, including a stint wearing a different set of silver basketweaves. They were the wheels that eventually went on Kugel, my 72 2002tii, when I sold it. Kugel was wearing the gold ‘weaves for a while, but when I put the car up for sale, I decided that the silver weaves were a more neutral look, so I swapped them. Looking at the pics, it was a good look for Bertha—elegance without the bling.
Bertha in silver and Kugel in gold, shortly before the wheel swap.
And STILL wearing the silver ‘weaves after the small-bumper swap. Forgot about that.
So, Bertha, I’ll make you a deal. If we have somewhere important to go together, there’s still a silver set of basketweaves in the garage that can be shod with real rubber. Just do one thing for me: Whisper in my ear and tell me why you’re not running right.
—Rob Siegel
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Rob’s newest book, The Best of The Hack Mechanic, is available here on Amazon, as are his seven other books. Signed copies can be ordered directly from Rob here.
Tags: e30 gold silver wheels
