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Slice of Life
Wheels of Fortune: Luxury wheels, or "rims,"
newest high-cost symbols of status
By D. A. McGaughey

Rolling past a new, white Hummer H2 with wheel rims costing in the $7,500 range, Harlem Lewis Jr. takes his wheelchair up an outdoor ramp to show off one of his business' more famous spots, the place where the area rappers and cable network giant B.E.T like to show off when making videos or doing stories on the luxury wheel phenomenon: it's a large, red outdoor painted wall on the side of the building. "We Make Your World Go 'Round," the wall reads. "No sitting on minors."
To anyone not familiar with the world of wheels, the wall holds just a few slogans. To Lewis and others in the wheel-and-rim world, the messages are abundantly clear: A11 the wheels sold here are worth having. And "minors?" Pass those up, wheel fans. "Minors" are wheel rims less than 18 inches in diameter -- just too small to be worth anybody's time in Houston, Texas.
"Minors are like youngsters -- under age," says Lewis about the small chrome wheels. "They're not popular here, so you don't want your ride sitting on them. It's like this: Remember when you were young and they had to check your 1D at the club or to get a drink? You got no respect. That's the same thing with minors. Too small. People will not think anything of it. They don't mean nothing."
But in California, Lewis notes, "minors" are hot. "In California, people like 15-inch wheels called Daytons. They cost $15,000."

Welcome to the world of luxury wheels, Bam style. Lewis is owner of Bam's Auto & Detailing in South Houston, an institution where the latest in wheel fashions can be seen and bought. People who buy wheels like these don’t really talk about it. It’s an unwritten code that if you talk about wheels, you really don’t know how to handle them.

"It’s cappin,’ says Lewis. "You don’t brag on this. "An old G. who flaunts…. that’s disrespecting the game. The ones who will cap aren’t used to having something like this. They’re young, and will probably have them taken from them."
Like most wheel retailers, Bam's sells the kinds of wheels that turn heads: bright, shiny chrome spoke styles in various diameters priced from about $1,800 for a set of four, to top-of-the-line, highly prized "stoppers," fan-shaped rims that keep spinning to make a vehicle look like as though it's still moving -- even at a stop light. Lewis can't keep enough of the $12,000-plus "stoppers" in stock.
"Very few people have them," says Lewis of stoppers, which look like a child's windmill toy on a stick. "Those are 22s (22-inches in diameter). One brand is called "Sprewells" " because (New York Knicks basketball player) Latrell Sprewell makes them through his own company.
The look is so popular is has spawned nearly as expensive knock offs. "People are buying adapters to put on a regular set of wheels so they can have that stopper look," Lewis explains. "But they're really imitation stoppers. They're adding an adapter for $2-3,000 to a wheel that already cost $2-3,000. That's $5,000 for a fake pair, and they don't really turn the same as the originals. It's $5,000 trying to act like a $15,000. It ain't going to work."

Lewis knows the wheel business as well as anybody. He watched the popularity of wheels grow along with the rap business; when rappers had "dubs" (20-inch diameter wheels) in their videos a few years back, pretty soon people started wanting them, too. Today, luxury wheels are another sign of cultural extravagance. Besides the fact that new chrome wheels make a vehicle look well-dressed, luxury wheels speak to a more basic human desire in its owners: a will to show the world they have financially "arrived."
"It's about the green," says Lewis, "the paper chase. I call it, 'Who's going to get it?' When people ask about a car, they want to know what's it sittin' on? It's a status symbol. It says is, 'do you have paper? (money). No, this applies to all This ain't a black thing. This is a nation thing that's going on It's a statement."

Yet the bright-and-shiny wheel business has its ugly and dangerous side. Lewis says he no longer sells "elbows," the small, chrome, multi-spoke rims with a spear tip poking out from their centers. Elbows look like the kind of wheels James Bond used when he pushed a button and made a pointy tip project from the center portion of the wheel to slice up an enemy's tires.
These wheels are called "83s" and "84s," and owners have been killed for them.
"To drive those wheels, you have to have two, three or four pistols in your car, have someone riding with you for protection, someone following behind you for protection and someone protecting you when you arrive. If you stop, you can get a gun to the head," says Lewis of the wheels that were made for Cadillac only in the years 1983 and 1984. "The only way you get respect on the street is if you don't let them take them."

The "83s" and "84s" aren't a big deal in California, so Lewis used to buy them there for about $500 and sell them in Houston for $4,000 to $7,000. But those days are over. "I've had friends lose their lives over them," Lewis says, shaking his head. But just who is buying the less-troubling beautiful wheels? Lewis says his customers cross all racial groups. "Everybody buys them," he says. "Blacks, browns, whites. Whites buy them a lot on line from the Internet. We ship them UPS right to their doorstep.
Women are also constitute a large number of luxury wheel customers. "Most people in my data base are older women and working-class males, "Lewis says. "Everyone wants the same thing. They're looking for something odd, different, unique."
Because the wheels are so attractive, Lewis says luxury cars without luxury wheels defeats the purpose.

"A Hummer on factory (wheels)?" Lewis says with a laugh. "It's just... nothing. It's actually like a joke. Why buy a Hummer in Houston, Texas? We don't have any hills here. That's why people buy Hummers. It's a status thing." The wheels, he says, complete the truck's head-turning effect.
Lewis, a thirtysomething year old who owns two trucks with luxury wheels himself -- one with "22s" and the other with "24s" -- began his foray into the wheel and auto business 13 years ago. After stints as a franchise owner of Bambolino's, the now-defunct pizza chain started by Ninfa's, and owner of two nightclubs, Lewis set up shop in a closed car repair shop on the corner of Griggs Road and Calhoun in Third Ward in southeast Houston. "They called it, 'Dead Man's corner,' " says Lewis, surveying his corner lot. "Nobody could stay here and survive. Everyone was like, 'Naw, you can't go to Dead Man's corner.' But I did and we've been here nearly 14 years."
For a time, Lewis’ grandmother, Isabella McFarland, who is still technically the business owner, ran the business. "Mama Bam," says Lewis. "She actually ran it for four to five years. It turned her into hip." Lewis, a native Houstonian, came from a family of high: achievers. A graduate of Jack Yates H.S., Lewis attended TSU, University of Maryland – Eastern Shore and Delaware State University, largely because his mother, Dr. Willie Mae Lewis, a psychologist, moved the family to various parts of the country as part of her career. Lewis' father, Harlem Lewis Sr., is a chemist. The senior Lewis invented the well-known line of Bam fruity smelling, vehicle air fresheners sold in small pump bottles at the store.

Lewis Jr. sits in a wheelchair today because of a shooting mishap about eight years ago. A rapper, music producer and married father of four with high expectations for all his children, Lewis runs a full-service auto repair and detailing shop at his store as well. The detailing shop is one of the few, officially licensed detailing establishments in town. "I spent $350,000 to do a $12 car wash," he says. "That's what kind of place we have here."
But luxury wheels are what drive his business. Can the feverish pace for them keep growing? Lewis thinks it can head either of two ways: the economic slump will force people to cut back on wheel buys... or it will get even bigger.
"Cash Money Millionaires have 32s," says Lewis of members of the popular rap group who now sport vehicles with 32-inch chrome rims. "They are making the tires to go with those 32s. So what do you think people are going to want next?"