BMW 14” Wheels, E21? E30? BBS Mahle? What are they?

[Dodgers]

Hello all,

I recently bought quite cheaply a set of what I believed to be 14” BBS Mahles but on collection they turned out to be a British made BBS Mahle style wheel.

Has anyone seen these before? Apparently these were fitted to a very high spec A reg E30. Any info on them would be appreciated.

Also a pic of my pre-facelift E21 316, 1 owner from new, 46k miles, as it’s early it seems to share a lot of parts with the 2002.

[uwbuurman]

I don't know what those are, but for sure a Mahle replica. Still look nice.

[Dodgers]

It’s an odd one isn’t it, the last part number and ET number are stamped which would suggest they can be machined with different offsets.

It came with the below sets of centre caps, the ones on them have been machined from acetal and aren’t original.
Maybe they were made on licence from Mahle/BBS?

[Jeroen]

Could be indeed! ET 33 is too big for E21, more likely to be E30 or VW spec so I don't think they will fit straight away, may need 15mm spacers.

[Dodgers]

I agree, the BBS Mahle RAs fitted on the golfs are ET33 I believe.
The steels I have on at the moment are ET29 but are 5J, at ET33 it is 4mm further away from the strut but being 6J it becomes 12.7 closer so it will be 8.7mm closer to the strut assembly overall .
I’ll fit them tomorrow and see.

[Dodgers]

Oops math is the wrong way around there it’ll be 16.7 closer to the strut, not likely to fit!