Malcolm Steward: audio journalist

This afternoon finally saw some progress on the Coupe wheels front after far too much humming and hawing… all of which was, I freely confess, my fault. Honestly, what do you expect when the world’s worst prevaricator, me, meets a quirky, low-volume Italian sports car?

Buying wheels for the coupe is not a simple or straightforward task. (Not that anything to do with this fascinating, furious motor is ever straightforward.) To begin with, Pininfarina/Fiat only made about 70,000 cars over its 10-year life, and less than ten per cent of those found their way to Blighty. Many of those were doubtless unceremoniously parked in ditches or dressed around trees and road furniture: have an accident in a turbocharged front-wheel drive car putting out between 200 and 500bhp (depending upon its state of tune) and it is highly unlikely to be a minor event.

I made enquiries of several alloy ‘experts’ at various companies and received completely contradictory advice from each. Will the ABC123 fit my car? Yes it will! No it won’t! Only with spacers! Only with wobble bolts! It was a perplexing and depressing experience but I continued because, forgive me Coop owners, I do not like the standard wheels’ styling one little bit. (I know it is tantamount to heresy and I risk excommunication for the offense but those wheels suck donkeys through a straw!)

Anyway, long story truncated, my coop’s former owner had a set of Dare 17-inch V1s fitted with 205/40/17 rubber kicking around at his place of work that he wanted out. He had had these fitted to the coop but had ditched them when he shredded the tyres and went back to the original 16-inchers with 50 profile balloons that were in better condition. So I offered him the low asking price he wanted and a few days later the filthy, festering foursome turned up in my drive.

The tyres were shot but I’d expected to replace them. The rims were coated with tar and brake dust, and they were also pretty badly ravaged in parts by potholes and kerbs. Nonetheless, I did the maths and figured that I could refurbish them more cheaply than I could buy a new set of decent hoops. Come Saturday I drove down to Halfords (I know, I know, but it’s only 15 minutes away from home and it’s a pleasant enough drive. And they cannot yet jail you for shopping with Barrys.) About 30 quid later I was kitted out with acid, brushes, a bucket and rubber gloves and ready to take on my Dares. It took me three hours of knackering effort to get them to a respectable shine so I racked them up against the Summer house and let the July downpours do their worst to finish the job.

The results were none too shoddy but I did not want wheels for which I would have to make any excuses. So, on Monday, I threw them into the Coop and ferried them to the MyAlloys Wheel Refurbishment Centre in Basingstoke, which is less than 30 miles away from my residence.

I had never been there before but the company website exuded such a friendly, family business type atmosphere that I felt that I would be comfortable doing business with it. That first impression turned out to be utterly spot on. My Dares are now resting there ready to be dipped, stripped, filled, sprayed, sanded, powder coated, and whatever else is involved in making them look respectable. The only difficult part of the transaction was choosing the colour in which they were to be finished. Eventually I saw sense and decided that Anthracite was far more of a practical choice than bright yellow I had started out wanting because it looked so cool on a local Lotus… albeit a British Racing Green one.

Anyhow, I now have to wait impatiently for a few days while the guys at MyAlloys work their magic and then I can report again.