It has been quite a while since an OEM has released a new wheel design that has made me sit up and take notice. I’ve long believed that it is the wheels that make the car, from a visual perspective, and many manufacturers have been phoning in wheel design.
Genesis, in lobbing the Hail Mary new G90 luxury sedan at the LA Auto Show and hoping for a miracle, has paid serious attention to the wheels. They look amazing. They look like they belong on a proper grand sedan. They’re substantial and somehow remain elegant. It’s a tough balance to achieve.
This is a modern take on the basket weave wheels that were once everywhere, which were themselves a then-modern take on the wire-spoke wheels that were once everywhere. The designer who penned these wheels, and the engineer that made them a reality, deserve a bit of applause.
Large luxury sedans need a bold wheel choice to have the right look. Think back to the Monoblock wheels on Mercedes-AMG’s E55 of the late 90s and early 2000s. That was a wheel that looked exactly right for the car. While the new Genesis G90 has yet to be tested, this is a great first impression. Genesis wants to be taken seriously, and this wheel design is all business.
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