Customer Cars: Goldie - Jon Hanna’s Mk2 Jetta Coupe
When sending a new wheel design to my factory, once the engineering is completed and a mold is made, I know they'll be sending me a sample for approval. This is standard industry protocol, but over the years I've learned that asking for a full set of wheels (or two) is usually a request most factories will approve.
Having early sets of a new design greatly helps with marketing and generating some early hype for pre-sales. The only issue is trying to decide which cars and owners will make the best partners for this process.
With the new 16" RML directional Teardrops, that final part wasn't even slightly challenging. I've know Jon Hanna for longer than either of us wants to me to admit to here, and to say he's an OG in the VW community is an understatement. Jon's 12v VR6 Mk2 Jetta Coupe is also an OG in every sense of the word, having been originally built by (and named, “Goldie”) community icon Jeffrey Bynum before his untimely passing.
Getting a sample set of 16x8 wheels to Jon was pretty straightforward, but the lug caps shipped separately (his are mostly hand-made and finished due to the molds for the caps not being ready at the same time as the wheel molds). Once they finally did arrive at his doorstep, apparently a porch-pirate did as well, and I had to have another set made for him.
Jon had the teardrop cut-outs color-matched by the awesome dudes at Drip Lab Customs, and though the plan was to also have the logo reliefs on the lug caps also matched, Jon still chose to mount the wheels on the Jetta and show them off at the AVF event in Helen, GA. It was far from ideal to have to show the wheels with no caps (and the exposed multi-lug fitment arrangement), but I'm super grateful to Jon for all of his efforts.
Once back from Helen, a second set of caps arrived and Jon made sure he was home to make sure they didn't "go missing". Not wasting any time, he delivered the caps to Drip Labs and they worked their magic on them. The photos you see here are the result of everyone's hard work and dedication to helping me show off these new wheels in the best possible light.
*As of the posting of this article, I'm still waiting for port arrival confirmation on the 16" Teardrops (and 16" Bottlecaps). The hope is still to see them show up and get processed by the end of the month, but it's definitely possible things could push into next month.
