When you’re trying to build the fastest car in human history, like the guys making the Bloodhound SSC, you have to make wheels that basically re-invent the wheel. To reach 1000mph and go supersonic, the wheels they’re using weigh over 230 pounds, nearly 3 feet wide and spin four times faster than a F1 car.
They not only have to be the fastest wheels in history, they have to be the strongest wheels in history — since they have to support all that speed and force and gravity and hopes and dreams.
For comparison, a F1 car’s wheels weigh 15kg each, are a little over 60cm wide, and spin at 2500rpm. The Bloodhound SSC zips around at 10,200rpm. It’s a wheel, but it’s also something much more insane.