Choosing a 'retro' colour for my TKR 2's wheels

I'm currently in the midst of stripping the paint from my spare set of Trekker wheels. These wheels were originally black, but I want to refinish them in a different colour that is in keeping with the 'retro' look that I am hoping to create for my bike.

The new bodywork is going to dark metallic red, so I am thinking about colours that will go with that as a colour scheme, yet still add to the 'retro' look. The original TKR wheels that came with the bike are Diamond White and that isn't my choice of colour for the new wheels. The second set of wheels were black and they looked crap, to be honest.

I'm thinking of either a dark gunmetal grey metallic, or what keeps going around in my head is Old English White. A similar paint colour was used for classic Lambretta and Vespa wheel rims and with a subtle red pinstripe around the edge of the wheels, has the potential to look the absolute dog's danglies - especially with some whitewall tyres.

What do you think? Comments please.

 

Hmm, things to think about. My name's Dave, by the way.

 

I like the idea of gunmetal, but am thinking about the same colour as you painted the engine.
Are you able to post a pic of the body colour at all?

 

This is something like I am aiming for as the bodywork colour.



This is the colour I refinished the engine cases in.



This is what the original wheels look like.




Ugh! This is where I've got up to with one of the spare set of wheels I have.





I still need to give the wheels a Citric Acid bath, to get rid of all of the crappy oxidation where the original paint blistered, but taking that black paint off was a biyatch. I want the wheels to be clinically clean before I refinish them.

 

Forget the idea of the same colour as the engine, i don't think it would look right.
Gunmetal I think would be about right, they certainly need to be darker than the engine colour but then a contrast to the bodywork colour.
I don't think that the off white retro colour would suit it personally.
You could always photo shop them to see how they would appear.