What it took to obtain period-correct wheels for our Elva

Update by Tim Suddard
Dec 15, 2025

A car needs wheels, right? Our Elva sports racer came with a few rear wheels but only one front–and a trike this is not.

We couldn’t just order a replacement front wheel from Tire Rack. We had to hunt for one. Again, welcome to our nightmare.

Our Elva Mk VI came from the factory wearing bespoke 15-inch wheels: 5 inches wide in the rear and, depending on which source you trust, 4 or 5 inches wide up front.

GMT Racing has sold new replacement wheels in the past but didn’t have any when we asked.

Luckily, we found a replacement wheel on eBay. The selling price was $400. Too much? We didn’t find any other option or source.



Once we had four wheels, we had to restore them. After media-blasting the wheels, we touched up the damaged lips with a hammer and dolly.

A local shop, V Perfect Polishing, polished the lips of all four wheels for $250. Magnesium polishes up like chrome, but sadly that shine doesn’t last as long.



Now to refinish the wheel centers. We painted them with a self-etching primer, necessary for proper adhesion when painting aluminum or magnesium. After 30 minutes, we could then apply high-build primer to smooth out any nicks and scratches.



We also primed the outsides of the barrels–the parts covered by the tires. Our reasoning: If we can make the wheels less porous–as magnesium is known to be–then maybe we won’t need to run heavy inner tubes.

We then brushed a final coat of Rust-Oleum medium gray enamel–picked up at our local Ace Hardware–on the backs of the spokes.

That gray paint bled around the spokes to the fronts of the wheels. Rather than panic and clean it off, however, we went all in and painted the fronts of the wheels with the same gray paint. It looked good.



We don’t have any color photos of our Elva back in the ’60s, but we think this hue is a pretty good match for the original–maybe a touch light but very, very close.

We’re also going to keep an eye on the GMT Racing site. If it ever offers those new Elva wheels again, we’ll likely pick up a set so we’re running the car on track on fresh, modern wheels.