Afterhours Wheel Works: Where it all began

Afterhours Wheel Works was established in 2013 only by chance when Owner Sak stumbled upon his love for wheels when trying to style his own car.

“I wanted to make my car look cool so I scraped together a few hundred dollars and bought a set of wheels that were rough but I knew they had more value. From memory, they were a set of Work VS SS in 17x9+24 and 17x10+32, badly rashed and painted black," Sak said.

“I refurbed them as well as I could and put them on my car and boy they looked great. One day someone saw them and really liked them. He wanted them for his Toyota Chaser and offered me $1,800 so I thought ‘hell yeah, why not?'.

“The process of refurbing the wheels was quite fun because it was a stark before and after difference. After a while I accidentally had too many wheels as I would buy two sets every time I sold one until I had about 20 sets all up."

Continuing down the path of refurbing wheels here and there while he was studying, Sak made his own part-time gig through word-of-mouth.

“That’s all I did while I was studying at uni and once I graduated as a Civil Engineer, I would go to work and come home to do wheels on the side. It ended up being a good thing flipping wheels because it was much more convenient than flipping cars."

After slowly chipping away at his side hustle over a few years, it took its own path to the point where both his corporate job and wheels were competing priorities.

“While I was working in engineering, I collected about 60 sets of wheels because Marketplace, Gumtree and YAJ are addictive and every time I saw a sweet deal, I would just buy them with the plan to restore them later.

"Once I started taking on customers doing repairs and restorations outside of my immediate friends group, that's when it got busy. I had to decide between engineering or wheels – you can see how that turned out!”

What’s your favourite set of wheels?

“I’m numb to wheels now but it’s really hard to answer this one because my style is always changing. I will say though, I do like a quirky wheel that you don’t see often.”

What would you like your customers to know about you and our services here at AHWW?

“People are more than welcome to come talk to me first and I can help steer them in the right direction to start looking for what wheels they want. But the easiest way to find the style you're after - and I know this sounds simple - is to Google your car and write 'wheels'. Example - Z32 wheels.”

Why are wheels and their styling so important to you?

“We are all rolling around in 70s, 80s and 90s cars that have been restored and we are keeping them alive so why not do the same for wheels? All these wheels have been on and off cars countless times and while we may not know the history of them, they have surely given joy to someone over that time so why can’t we do that again and again.”