Wheel Wednesdays- The Star Sharks

Each Wednesdays Ill be doing a post about a specific wheel, a range of wheels or something wheel related. These posts will aim to not only be ascetically pleasing but also informative. Ill try to add magazine advert scans and any other information I have cataloged over the years.

This week I chose the SSR | Colin Star Sharks. The Star Shark isn't the rarest Japanese wheel but is still highly sort after. With its classic star design Its on to top of many peoples "wish list".  

From the scan above you might notice there is actually three Star Sharks! The Original Star Shark, the Star Shark II and the Star Shark Mini. Not to many people know that the Star Shark II or the mini even exist as both are much much rarer then the original Star Shark. The Star Shark II also gets miss labeled as SSR Jilba's or even the Dunlop TEa lot of the time, but under closer inspection its fairly easy to see the difference. 

The Original and most popular Star Shark comes in 13, 14 and 15 inch diameters. 15" are the rarest and very rarely pop up for sale. Unfortunately I havn't come across a scan with factory widths and offsets, but from what I have seen widths range from 5" up to some crazy 10" wide pairs which appear to original. Again with no documented proof factory colours come down to what I have personally seen, but as far as I can tell, black, red and gold are all original colours and from the first scan purple might have been a factory option as well,  I have seen a few pairs for sale that appear the be that exact purple. Known PCD's are 4x100 4x110, 4x114.4 and 4x120, 4x114.3 being the most common.

Among the rarer of the original Star Shark are the 5 stud versions and the gold lipped versions. These two variations are very very rare compared to the more common 4 stud version and the prices they get reflect this. SSR offered the gold anodised lips on many of its wheels, the most documented is the Super Star range, but mk1's, mk2's, XR-4 Longchamps have all be seen with the gold lips, suggesting it was an option on most of the early SSR wheels.

Next in the Star Shark range is the Star Shark II's. The much rarer brother to the original Star Shark and with minimal documentation and knowledge about them they are often mis-labeled as other similar designed wheels, such as the SSR Jilba or the Dunlop TE. However the design is very unique and with closer inspection you can determine them from other wheels, and the "COLIN" and "Speed Star" stamps on the back will confirm them as Star Shark II's. I have only ever seen 4 stud versions of the Star Shark II and documentation suggests only 4 stud versions exist. Surprisingly, despite their rarity the Star Shark IIs generally sell for less then the original Star Shark. 

Finally the Star Shark Mini. The mini is probably the rarest of the three Star Sharks its very rare to see these for sale. I have seen very little documentation on these and have only seen a handful for sale so I don't have a great deal of information on these, but 4x100 and 4x114.3 have been seen.

I hope this post made you love the Star Sharks as much as I do. Also if you have any more info or documentation on Star Sharks or any other classic wheels please feel free to email me so I can add it to my catalog =).  Also a big thanks to JDMEURO for the posting these scans! Be sure to head over and check out their blog! =)