sees wheels

[dsmith]

kinda in the dark about these rims... when did production start on these wheels? when did production end?

thanks

[Brandon G]

87-92 approx.

The owner of the company (Andy) had a buddy that brought his Frog over to the machine shop and they turned out a set of wheels for it. They took the car with the new kicks on it down to the hobby shop, and everybody flipped over them. They then started to make them and distributed them locally through the local hobby shops. Horizon got wind of what they were up to and offered them a deal they couldn't pass up.

If you look through the old magazines you can see when they made the progression (if you want to call it that) to Horizon. The ads went from a small 2"X2" pic-less ad to half page with pictured examples. The old Horizon pamphlet that came with the JRXT's and JRX Pro's had a lot of pics in it with the vehicles equipped with See's wheels.

Andy told me that shortly after the Horizon deal they were cranking out 20,000 wheels a month. Hard to believe.

See's is still in operation in Gardena, Ca. making billet impellers and casings for The Blower Shop, among other things.

[dsmith]

interesting...thanks for the info...i quit racing/driving r/c cars in 1986...so no wonder these were unheard of by me..the 1st aluminum rims i could find BITD were the advance "mini mags".

[RC10resto]

Hi brandon,
Have you ever disclosed how you became the "king" of Sees wheels

[Brandon G]

I picked up a set of JRX2 front directionals about 4 years ago on ebay. I started my search for a matching set of rears and I had zero luck.

Googled See's and lo and behold they were still in business in Gardena. So I gave him a call and I was happy to find out they still had some stuff left.

The family had a trip to LA planned so I made a pit stop over at the See's shop to get a match for what I already had. Met Andy, a very nice fellow, and he walked me upstairs to the storage where they kept all the old stuff. Lots of old stuff. I got the matching rears I was looking for as well as 8 other complete sets just to see how they would do on auction. Needless to say, they did pretty well. Called Andy back up, and we worked out a price on the remaining stock. A week later the 2 pallets arrived at work (yes, 2 pallets). I have been selling/trading with them ever since.

To all the people who curse me for the good luck, the purchase price was not a gimme.. It took some serious thinking to fork over the dough to pick em up, but I'm glad I did. All the auctions I do on ebay always start at $.99 and have no reserve. I did ask Andy why he did not sell them on ebay himself, but he said he was simply not interested in the trouble of it. Evidently he is making plenty of bucks with his current work load.

We chatted for hours about the history behind it. He has a copy of every RCCA that had his wheels advertised in it. Also had the original Horizon ad pictures framed and up in his office.

One side note: after the whole RC thing died down, they started making billet wheels for racing go-karts. The left overs were stacked on 2 racks in the storage area right behind the RC stuff. He is wanting to unload them as well. I thought about picking them up as well, but I figured my good luck had run it's couse and I better not push it (and my bank acct was depleted as well).

[shodog]

great story on that swoop of a lifetime.

[fastang]

I don't know about the karting wheels. For one, I dont know if there will ever be a demand for vintage karting stuff, although I just read somewhere there is a vintage karting association so maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea. #2, they are starting to make wheels out of C/F. Once that becomes the hot item in the pits you won't be able to give away the alu wheels.

On the other hand, if you can get them for real cheap, and I mean cheap, you could always get some if not all your $$$ back by recycling them but you would think the owner would be aware of this too.

So how many sets of wheels you have left? Wanna trade a D/O chassis for a set?

[Brandon G]

I have a few sets left...

[Lowgear]

Here are my Lunch Box / Midnight Pumpkin ones.

[dsmith]

i guess these are sees wheels for tamiya...still not sure if they are the 1.5 tamiya wheels...i have never seen or heard of sees for tamiya until a day ago..
check them out.

[civilguy]

That's funny... bitd they would have had more $$ in wheels than the rest of the Falcon.

[shodog]

I have a set of those Falcon wheels and yes they are pretty rare. Most see's buggy wheel I saw were for RC10 and JRX2

[vintage AE]

great story brandon! I just picked up a pair off ebay for about $175, $200 with international shipping I'm quite excited, but thought it was a bit pricey.

[hywayhauler]

Did See's ever make directional Gold Center wheels?

[Trackingz]

Love the set i got with old rc 10 off ebay europe they were pretty oxided when i got then but have come good lots of polishing