Intro: 0:00
Early History: 0:50
F1 Partnership: 2:35
What makes them so good 3:09
About the RPF1 3:25
Rapid Fire Round 5:04
Racing Series 5:29
Tuning Series 6:23
Performance Series 7:00
Truck Series 7:29
Conclusion 7:45
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We know you want RPF1s: [ Ссылка ]
Let’s talk about the history of Enkei - these dudes have been around since 1950. 74 years of making wheels. Originally starting out in Shizuoka Japan, enkei has exploded into one of, maybe the Largest wheel company on the planet.
Enkei gets their name from…nothing, the company has literally never explained it. There are theories, but none of them have ever been confirmed. The name is written in katakana which is a japanese alphabet that represents english characters, so people speculate that they literally just picked a cool sounding name
Anyway much like every other JDM wheel company these guys basically give us NOTHING to work from so we’ve consulted the ancient texts and cobbled some information together on their history - shoutout wikipedia, my high school teachers told me I couldn’t use you as a source for essays, but look at me now.
So, basically, enkei was formed in 1950 and well - stated making wheels. They made a lot of them and by 1967 they had opened a new factory specifically to export wheels. Well, that was going so well for them, they established Enkei International in Michigan in 1984. Then in 1985, for some reason, they established Enkei America in Columbus indiana which was their US wheel manufacturing plant. Why they started making wheels in indiana when the cars they were trying to put them on were in detroit, and they already had an office there, is completely beyond me.
Anyway, from 1987 to 1997 they expanded all over asia, opening factories in malaysia, china, indonesia, philippines, etc… Then in 97 they opened yet another US factory, this time in florida.
Then, in 1995, one of the most pivotal moments in Enkei’s history occurred when they partnered up with Mclaren F1 and became the official supplier of Mclaren’s F1 team. One of you f1 nerds can tell me if this is a good thing or a bad thing in the comments
For the next two decades Enkei opened and closed and moved factories like crazy, earning all kinds of certifications in the process like the prestigious QS9000 and ISO9000 meaning that they just make some really good wheels.
So what makes Enkei wheels so good? Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last…ever? Enkei does two things well. They make really really light wheels, and they make them really really cheap, so you know what we’re starting off with here The rpf1 - which stands for “racing pretty fast”, no it doesn’t I made that up, can these JDM wheel manufacturers PLEASE give us more context about their products - is a wheel produced with Enkei’s proprietary MAT technology. This reduces weight by 10-15%
Anyway - the rpf1 uses these super thin spokes combined with the MAT manufacturing process, some aggressive pocketing around the lug holes, and all kinds of other proprietary enkei secret sauce to make these some of the lightest wheels on the planet. The biggest boi - the 18x10.5, comes in at around 19 lbs. That’s pretty light.
You might be thinking, all of that technology, in a semi kinda sorta forged-ish wheel must cost a small fortune. Wrong again. In the biggest size, that 18x10.5 - $409/wheel right there on threepiece.us bundle with tires and save btw oh and, the rpf1s are literally derived from the wheels used in 95 on the Mclaren F1 car, so you get to say you have f1 technology, which is pretty neat.
So enkei basically has the winning formula here. Make em light, make em cheap, and make em strong. So how do they do the last part
Enkei created a testing standard called spec E which is basically just a giant flex. They set their standards higher than the industry JWL testing standard, involving a higher drop point on the impact testing, and 20% more cycles on the rotary and radial fatigue tests. Enkei themselves say “the spec E represents enkeis confidence in its technology and quality”
