1:24 14 inch Gotti 4-spoke

Four spokes that will not be confused with anything else

The French Gotti built its name on split wheels whose rim was made up of several parts bolted together. The four-spoke form is the most striking of the whole range: instead of a dense fan of thin arms there are four wide legs here, which leave enormous openings between them. It looks light and aggressive at the same time, and at a period when the other manufacturers were outdoing one another in the number of spokes it was an altogether opposite line of thinking.

Where a wheel like this belongs

Its home is the French scene of the seventies and eighties, from the sporting versions of series cars to mid-engined competition specials. If you are building a French car and want it to belong to its country and time at first glance, this is one of the strongest solutions. It works, though, even where you are knowingly mixing the origins of the parts and building a car to an idea of your own.

How demanding it is and what to watch

The wide openings cut both ways. On the one hand the wheel is easy to paint, because there is nowhere you have to aim into narrow gaps. On the other hand the inside of the arch is perfectly visible through them, so an empty space behind the wheel positively strikes the eye here. Count on the brake and the inside of the arch needing to be dealt with better than with a wheel with dense spokes. That is exactly why the set is better recommended to a builder who already has one show build behind him.

Painting

A split wheel tended to have a differing coloring: a light center and a darker or, the other way around, polished outer ring. Emphasize the difference between the two parts; it is the recognizable mark of the whole construction.