Remember I was still waiting for my new wheels to turn up? Well guess what...

Yes my new BRM wheels finally turned up! Two days before the wedding day too!

When I first ordered my new 4.5-inch BRMs for the front of my Beetle I was told the black detailed versions would take 9 weeks or so to arrive as they are out of stock. This seemed to be the case everywhere so to try and speed things up, in order to get my Bug to the church on time, I went with the silver versions with the premise I would be able to paint them up myself and take the remaining month and a bit to test the car and get it legal.

A month later I was still without my wheels. Yes I'd been delivered 5.5-inch versions in the mean time and then told I was lying when I informed them that they were the wrong width (apparently this 'version' of BRM has 5.5 J stamped to the back of them even if they are 4.5 J) but after measuring them for the seventh time I confirmed they were too wide and I needed them swapped.

Anyway, I could rant and rave about it 'till I ran out of oxygen but I won't. The company who I'd bought them through worked their hardest to sort the problem from the outset - it was the supplier who was causing all the agro! Grrrr!

Two days before the big day I finally had my 4.5-inch Silver BRMs and set about painting them up. A lot of prep work and masking followed (check out the photos below) before laying on some high gloss paint! I went with eight coats of paint just to be sure. Also it might be worthy of noting I used electrical tape on the rounded edges as it gives a good straight edge and can stretch/bend to give better accuracy.

As for the tyres, well I went with what I know - Firestone F-560 145x15. These were a little hard to find through the normal outlets but after finding www.vintagetyres.co.uk through Google I had a pair ordered pronto. These arrived before the wheels did!

I have to say I'm well chuffed with the way the wheels and tyres look on the car - in fact they look that good that I'm thinking I have to do something about the older versions on the back as they just don't shine as well. Masking tape and paint at the ready!