Creating a Wheel Part1
by Daniel Buck
www.danielbuck.net

This tutorial will be how to make a wheel, particularly a classic rally wheel. Part 2 will be a 5 spoke "muscle car" wheel.

Here is what I am using as a loose reference:

Start off with a tube:

and from the top view create the outside rim:

All I am doing is selecting all the vertical edges and using the "connect" tool to add more segments, then moving them where I need them, then scaling in the middle section to create the dip in the middle. Lastly, chamfer any edges that need to be crisp, and put a use meshsmooth with 2 iterations .

You'll end up with something like this, the outside rim of the wheel:

Now we move on to the center cap. Start with a cylinder directly in the middle of the wheel rim, and follow along:

Start with a cylinder of 25 sides around, and turn it into an editable poly.
Delete the back side of it so you have just have a circle.
Extrude out (or shift scale) the outside edge any way you like until you have a shape something like this:
Move the rings of edges out until you have a bowl shape:
Chamfer 2 rows of edges, and extrude them inward just a tad:

You'll end up with something like this:

Now we'll start on the inside rim:

Same as before, only start with a tube this time, and delete the back side. Add in a row of edges towards the center a bit:
Move the outside edge back, and chamfer the middle row of edges.
move the new edge backwards
create a new 2 new rows of edges
Select and delete some polygons to create your holes in the rim
Chamfer the row of edges here to get a tight corner (when smoothed)
and apply a shell modifier with about 3 height segments (go crisp up the edges)

Apply your meshsmooth, and you'll have something like this:

There you have it! A nice older style rally wheel :-)