Wire wheel

[5] Eugène Meyer of Paris, France was the first person to receive, in 1869, a patent for wire wheels on bicycles.

From the earliest days automobiles used either wire wheels or heavy wooden or pressed steel spoked artillery type.

Before 1960, sports/racing cars usually had Rudge-Whitworth centerlock wire wheels equipped with splined hubs and a quick-release "knockoff" (central wing nut) locking cap[7] that could be unscrewed by striking a wing of the nut with a special alloy mallet or "knockoff hammer".

[8] Some jurisdictions, including the United States and West Germany, prohibited eared hubcaps for safety reasons in the late 1960s.

In response, some manufacturers (e.g. Maserati) preferred to hold the wheel on the splined hub by capping with a single conventional unwinged hex nut requiring a special large spanner.

New versions of wire wheels are still made but often with standard hub bolt patterns covered by a center cap to fit without adapters.

At one time, motorcycles used wire wheels built up from separate components, but, except for adventure, enduro or dirtbikes, they are now mainly used for their retro appearance.

Wheelbuilders of racing teams and in good bicycle shops build wheels to other patterns such as two-cross, one-cross, or no-cross (usually called radial).

[15] In the 1980s, cast wheels with 5 or 6 rigid spokes began to appear in the Olympic Games and in professional racing.

[23][26] Despite being composed of thin and relatively flexible spokes, wire wheels are radially stiff and provide very little suspension compliance compared to even high-pressure bicycle tires.