About Us
Specialty Wheels, Ltd. is an entity that originated from the dreams and aspirations of Tom Sensabaugh. Tom was an avid muscle car collector and realized that he could not find wheels for his restoration projects. Given his innovative spirit, he decided to build his own restored wheels.
Soon after he built his first set of wheels, people started to notice them on his cars at shows around the Pacific NW and they began to ask where he got them. Many begged and pleaded Tom for a set of his wheels. As a result of this word of mouth, Tom began to build wheels for friends. In 1985, Tom officially started the original company “Classic Rims” in his home shop near Sandy, Oregon. In the beginning, he manufactured only one wheel, the 14X6 Magnum. Like many of you, Tom frequented wrecking yards to find old discarded wheels. He removed the centers, refurbished them and built each wheel painstakingly by hand.
Over time, the business continued to grow and Tom was faced with the need to make a career decision. As a successful insurance agent, Tom was put in the position of choosing between his long time career and his hobby. For Tom, there really was no decision to be made. His love of muscle cars and the desire to produce the highest quality wheels for restoration won out!
In order to make this new business viable, Tom invested his life’s savings and commissioned a high quality machine shop to develop the tooling to press new centers. The demand for these wheels was beginning to outstrip the available supply of used wheels for restoration and Tom’s vision was to be the first to produce reproduction wheels. Tom’s persistent commitment to quality demanded that these wheels be exact reproductions of the original wheel and, in several cases, he demanded that they be made of a higher quality than the originals. He identified suppliers who could provide him high quality rims and the business continued to grow. Soon, he was making Magnum 500’s in a variety of sizes to meet the demands of this growing base of customers. He also began to refurbish original custom wheels as well. Tom’s focus was always on the 60’s and 70’s muscle car market. He believed that by focusing on this specific aspect of the car restoration market would result in a company committed to providing a superior product to these car owners. Tom never lost focus on providing outstanding value to our customers.
In 1990, Classic Rims became Specialty Wheels, Ltd. and we continued to expand our offering of custom muscle car wheels. Until 2001, we continued our slow expansion when we finally outgrew the shop at Tom’s house in Sandy, Oregon and the company moved into the manufacturing facility we are in today. In order to assure the highest quality product, our manufacturing methods now include the use of CNC machining and robotic welding. During the last 6 years, our volume has continued to increase, our product line continued to grow and our markets have expanded beyond the United States. We now regularly ship to a variety of countries around the world.
Our commitment to quality has also been a consistent part of our new product development effort. Each new product undergoes a rigorous design, development and testing process. As a result of this effort, Specialty Wheels was the proud recipient of the award for best new product for our 17” Magnum 500 wheel at the 2004 SEMA show in Las Vegas. An award bestowed only to the best of the best. We were picked out of a field of thousands of restoration related companies.
Although, Tom passed away in late 2005, his commitment to excellence still permeates our company. The team at Specialty Wheels remains committed to providing the best reproduction wheels on the market today. We are proud to be part of some of the greatest moments in automobile history. Our hope is you will gain the same enjoyment and pride from our wheels that Tom did by joining the extended family of satisfied customers who purchased their wheels from Specialty Wheels.