Steel or aluminum?
This is an attempt to explain some of the confusion concerning the choice of rims used by BMW. BMW offered both chrome plated steel and alloy, or aluminum rims. I only watched BMWs on the show room floors from 1962 and later. I will only be guessing about earlier year production. Each year BMW offered one type of wheel as standard and the other one was an accessory that cost $25 extra. One may see this on invoices from that era. Steel would be offered for a year or two and then alloy would be offered as standard. For a year or two the sport models (R69S and R50S) were only available in aluminum while the R50/R60 was steel as standard. Some dealers kept new wheels in both types to offer up a choice to any buyer. Owners would decide to change the type of wheels and buy new ones of the other type. There are so many variables involved that without a series of invoices of each year, we will probably never figure out what was correct for any one year. The question has come up concerning the
