With the weather being so great lately I’ve found myself spending way more time in the garage, very happily tinkering on various little improvements, reorganization projects, and general cleaning. As part of this I’ve been busily moving some parts around to put some things away into deeper storage while others come back out in preparation for coming install days.

Inevitably all of this parts moving led to the stacks of wheels in the corner and I felt it was definitely time I started on some of the wheel swaps. Typically I’d get to it a bit earlier in the year but the questionable weather held on just that much longer this time – that, along with the 403 BeaSTs meet photos going up last week, explains why I’m just now talking about putting summer wheels on for a blog post in the (almost) middle of June.

Anyway, I started off the wheel swaps with Dijon so that my mother could have her Integrales back on for the warmer weather and various little gatherings she was taking it to (including that 403 BeaSTs meet seen last week). With her 57DRs coming off however, instead of tucking them away for her I asked if I could borrow them for a couple of weeks just for fun, and she was fine with it. I was very curious to see how the light grey powdercoat she’d picked would look against the Ingot Silver of my own hatch, as well as how it’d look on some 57DRs in general.

The first step then, was to get the Integrales out and remind myself how much fun cleaning them wasn’t. Like I joked in the video (linked below), I didn’t get them to Jason levels of clean but did address most of the dirt and dust that had been missed and accumulated over winter, respectively.

As far as Dijon’s swap was concerned this would have been just a standard, bi-annual changeover but there was one small update worth highlighting; when my 326Power license plate bolts came in last year, also sitting in that package was a full set of lug nuts for the yellow hatch. Instead of fitting them then however, my mother ended up tucking them away and brought them out to be put on this season, in place of the now well-worn Stance:Nation pieces the car had been running for a while.

They’re technically the same lugs – just a shorter version this time – but with 326Power’s own logos and now, the little drilled accents around the top. You can see how the length varies as compared to the longer pieces that Dijon had, and Mustard still wears, as shown here.

Wheels cleaned and lugs unboxed, I then quickly switched around the first four wheels before the rain came in.

In these photos (and the video) the caps from Dijon’s lug nuts were missing, but since then I have applied a drop or two of CA glue to each one and threaded them in place. Having them be removable is not crucial or important in any way here, and after losing one of the Stance:Nation caps some time back (it was replaced) my mother didn’t want to repeat that with these.

After a brief break as I waited for the light rain to pass, it was then time to switch the RS winters out for the 57DRs and see how the grey/silver combo would look on Arabis. It’s worth noting that my OEM lug nuts of course wouldn’t work here, but I luckily still had Mustard’s old Muteki lug nuts in the spare parts pile.

Evident by my garage photos here, I’ve not taken any “proper” pictures of Arabis in the daylight since I moved the wheels around but I’d best be getting to that as I need to return these soon! Even at stock height though (as Dijon still is, incidentally) these do look rather good! I had photoshopped them onto Arabis previously but was still very curious to see them on the car for real at some point, even if it was just one wheel and only for a few minutes. After having these properly on the car for a little bit, I think I’ll be a little sad to have to return them.

Now in case some of you are wondering at this point “didn’t you have some 57xtremes set aside for the hatch?” the answer is yes, I did. Did. Past tense. These actually very recently went to another local Mk3 owner, so watch for them to pop up on a pre-facelift sedan!

I was a little sad to see them go, I won’t lie, but I have some new ideas in mind and these would have only been taking up extra space in the garage. Not to mention collecting dust. In the meantime the hatch still has its RS 18s and original 17s, but not only did another trip to Edmonton recently result in a new wheel restoration project that may end up being used for this car, there’s also a certain OEM set I’m keeping an eye out for that will hopefully pop up some day. Eventually. Maybe. Fingers crossed.

All that’s for another day however. For now, the silver hatch is looking pretty sharp on its borrowed 57DRs and Dijon is ready for the car season with its Integrales and shiny new lug nuts.

-Bill