Once upon a time, most new cars came with simple steel wheels designed for strength. Hubcaps took care of the styling, even on snazzy luxury cars. There were some exceptions of course, but even when widespread use of styled aluminum wheels expanded in the 1980s, designs remained relatively simple.
Flash forward to 2025. For every basic five-spoke wheel design there are a dozen alternatives with enough spokes, edges, pockets, angles, spinners, holes, faux fasteners, and geometric shapes to effectively melt your corneas.
Photo by: General Motors
It’s a sign of the times, right? A reflection of automotive design that has, frankly, become quite overdone. Can’t we just have some clean, attractive wheels?
Modern wheels are indeed a reflection of complex automotive design trends, but there’s actually a method to much of that madness. Marc Mainville, Senior Design Manager at GM’s Performance, Motorsport, and Accessories (PMA) studio, opened our eyes to the technology driving the selection of these bigger, bolder, wheels.
“I don’t know that the design is intended to be more complex, but there are definitely more elements that weigh into designing a wheel than there were in the past,” he said. “Say you had a simple five-spoke. They may have said ‘Okay, yeah, it looks like it will be strong enough,’ and they’ll make it and go run it on a track, and everyone was happy. Now we can do virtual testing, virtual aero testing, material analysis.”
With sophisticated tools at their disposal, designers at the PMA studio have considerably more freedom to explore wheel development. That’s not necessarily the same as simple wheel design—modern wheels must balance safety, performance, and efficiency with style.
Photo by: General Motors
“A wheel and a tire together can affect roughly 10 percent of the overall aero count of a vehicle,” explained Mainville. “Whereas before, that wasn’t so important, nowadays when we’re looking for as much efficiency as possible for electric vehicles, for high-performance vehicles, that’s part of the equation where maybe we didn’t pay as much attention before.”
This is why you see many modern wheels with various inserts and flat sections. Beyond aesthetics, these design elements aim to improve aerodynamic efficiency while still exuding a bit of style.
‘It allows us to challenge the designs a little bit more, make things a little bit more interesting, maybe twist shapes in ways we wouldn’t have done in the past.’
Brake cooling has always factored into wheel design, but virtual development allows designers to get very specific—and creative—with shapes to maximize cooling while balancing other considerations.
“The engineers will tell us, ‘We need this much surface area open for brake cooling,’ so we’ll do our favorite design we’re in love with, then run it through the computer and find out we’ve got to increase the vent area a little bit. Or maybe we’re overachieving, we’ve got to shrink it down some. One thing we do for aero performance will offset the weight. Something that offsets weight may offset stiffness. It’s like you have the wheel in the middle, and all these things are tugging in different directions. What’s the right balance?”
Achieving that balance became easier with the wide range of materials and finishes now available to designers. Once upon a time, you generally had steel or aluminum to choose from. Perhaps deluxe wheels were painted or polished, or in the case of steelies, treated with a primer to reduce rust, then fitted with wheel covers.
Photo by: General Motors
General Motors Advanced Design Pasadena
Now, lightweight alloys and carbon fiber open up all kinds of possibilities, including larger-diameter wheels that showroom gawkers love but performance enthusiasts generally hate. On that front, good news: at least in the halls of the PMA, performance is always in mind for wheel designs.
“[Engineers] will give us requirements,” Mainville said. “Stiffness value has to be this high, or mass has to be this low. They might emphasize mass because we’re trying to reach a certain MPG number. Or they might say this is going to be doing high-speed laps at a race track, so stiffness is important. That might encourage us to use different materials.”
The range of materials is particularly useful on the Corvette, which received GM’s first carbon fiber wheel. Mainville explained that going with carbon fiber allows for larger sizes that people like to see, while the lower weight means there isn’t a tradeoff in performance. And let’s not forget—larger wheels allow room for larger brakes.
But advancements in technology and materials aren’t solely for the benefit of performance cars like the Corvette. Designers can work with less exotic materials to make bigger wheels for vehicles like the Suburban, which is now available with 24-inchers from the factory—and drives amazingly well from our experience.
Photo by: Christopher Smith / Motor1
“Maybe it’s still a traditional alloy wheel but the way it’s manufactured, it has much thinner wall sections,” said Mainville. “So you can have a bigger wheel, but through finite element analysis, where the virtual testing is done, they can check to see if the wheel will meet the loads needed. So we can push the size a little bit if it’s appropriate, but then get the mass out in other areas that we could never test in the past. And that’s all with the advancements in computer software we have now.”
Of course, it’s not all just numbers and virtual testing. Wheels and the tires they carry are arguably the most important components of a vehicle, and not just because they carry a car down the road. Short of a full paint job, nothing else changes the character of a car so drastically as a set of wheels. They’re usually the first thing people notice, grabbing the attention of enthusiasts and casual observers alike. They’re emotional. They’re personal. Style absolutely matters. And Mainville’s team at the PMA understands that.
“Our responsibility is compelling design; they have to look great,” he said. “In the last 5-10 years there’s been a noticeable increase in making more out of the wheels. Like before, it was a simple five-spoke and maybe just a silver paint. Now we have so many different finishes.”
Does this mean wheel designs will become increasingly complex? Mainville said that finishing and design technologies will advance further, but you need simple options too.
“With the Z06 and ZR1, there are really interesting cross-lace dual star pattern wheels that I love. But then we also have a very clean, simple five-spoke alloy. That’s two different ends of the spectrum, and for me, that’s the most exciting part because I know not every customer will have the same taste at the same time.”
Photo by: General Motors
Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Convertible
Photo by: General Motors
So yes, factory wheels are more complex than ever. But a fair chunk of this complexity goes into making your sports car faster, your EV more efficient, or your SUV more stylish without exacting a toll on fuel economy. We suspect these factors are not often considered by the average buyer, and it makes sense when you think about it. Wheels are there so the car can roll, and maybe turn a few heads in the process. Beyond that, who cares, right?
We care. Mainville and his team care. And hopefully, now you care too. Whether you dig the big wheels with a gazillion spokes or prefer smaller, simpler shapes, it’s encouraging to see automakers investing more time into designs that actually make a car drive better. It’s proof that form and function can live in harmony.
And dare we say—understanding the science makes these complex wheels more interesting, at the very least.
