Hot Rods Beans 'N Slots? Wheel Guru's needed!

Am I the only one (ha ha) that doesn't see much difference between "Kidney Beans" and "Slotted" wheels? The shapes of the windows in the wheels are basically the same, and only seem to differ in size, edge treatments, etc..

At some point, the some of the windows in this style wheel began take on other shapes, like ETs, and are no longer kidney bean shapped. Or ribs were added and they became lakes or B'ville's or salt flats. Discounting those styles, most all of the bean or slotted labeled wheels all look like some sort of bean shape to me and not so much like slots, or slits, or keystones, circles, or....

Who was the first kidney bean maker, Halibrand? The first "slot" wheel mfg? Is the difference in names just a marketing deal? Just wondering, Gary

 

EEEERRRRR, are you wondering about the difference between say a Halibrand "sprint" wheel and say an Ansen slot? The differences are HUGE and visible from as far away as space. Just study a bit and you'll see. First, the Halibrand will be made of Magnesium, where the "slot mag" will be aluminum. The windows in the Halibrand are slightly squarer and have a lip around them, where as the slot will 99% of the time be flat around the hole. Most of the time the Halibrand's outer lip will have a soft radius, where the slot will be squared and hard machined. When polished, mag has a much deeper sheen than the alumiunum wheels will.

As far as history goes, yes, the Halibrand small window slotted wheels came about in the mid to late fifties with the very first being about 8" wide and featuring four holes instead of five. Soon after the molds were modified to a small five slot configuration and more sizes such as the 4 1/2" front became available by the later fifeties. The "sprint" type Halibrand came about in the early sixties aimed at the roundy round crowd.

Just take some time here on the H.A.M.B. and in magazines and you'll start to see the differences very quickly.

 

Halibrand speedways are big kidney bean openings....big windows. Sprints have the more rectangle openings

 

We could do this the easy way. The bard wheel standing up is an Ansen Sprint or a slot wheel. if someone would post a halibrand kidneybean we would be able to make a comparison.

 

Kidney bean style.....



Slotted mags......



Hot Rod Deluxe did a good article on magnesium wheels. Here's the link.

http://www.hotrod.com/hotroddeluxe/hrxp_1205_how_to_identify_vintage_magnesium_racing_mags/

 

Thanks, the difference is obvious.

 

You're welcome. I added a link to my last post with a lot of good info on old "mag" wheels too. .

 

There is a lot of confusion about mag wheels in general. When whomever produced what, what they are called etc. A link is always helpful.

 

Guys, I understand the difference in materials, (cast vs billet or forgings), style and looks, but the holes in many of these style wheels all have the same general shape, oval-ish, and both are curved evenly around the center of the wheel. So... regardless of brand or mfg process, they holes all have "bean" shapes to me. This isn't a real big deal to me, no arguments, really. I'm just wondering how a curved, oval hole that looks like it has been milled from billet versus the same shape that has been cast (and probably milled the same way in the master?) get different names and if it was because of marketing. If not, so be it. Gary

 

I don't think any company actually called their wheels "Slots". I know Ansens are Sprints. Every company had a different name for similar styles.

 

The same goes for the "kidney bean". God knows where that started but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Halibrand.

 

I can easily detect a Halibrand wheel, but ALL the other aluminum slot/sprint/mag/bean wheels look kinda the same to me.

 

Difference being the raised lip on the kidneys?

 

Around here at least, the only wheel ever referred to as a kidney bean is the small window 5 hole Halibrand (or faithful copy) as shown in post #5 above.

 

There are actually a lot of things that seperate an Ansen from a knock off. They are little things and I for the life of me couldn't name them but if you get one near the other they become real evident.

You are correct they all resemble the other sort of. Funny thing about Ansens, I have seen them marked on the back side mostly. But I have seen them marked Ansen on the front side in the bolt circle. I wish I knew the difference.

 

This might be the best reason / answer, they are just nick names that "stick" somehow and get spread thru the media. Gary