Der Steiner Rads Wheels

[restojohnny]

[Al67bug]

Can SOMEONE just tell me how or who to order a set of these?
I've read all of the 'he said' 'I own it' stuff & don't wish to be rude, but I JUST WANT A SET. SIMPLE.....
Seems I have tried several attempts to contact Randee & nothing.
Have money to spend on a cool set of wheels for my beetle & no-one seems to be able to help me secure a set.

No I can't drop in & see him because I am in Australia... Can't seem to order them anywhere, facebook him, no response. Email him, no response....

Happy for the Euro version.... just want to know who & where so I can get a set
Please

[Speedsterboy]

[Dave]

Hi Morten, good to see you on here, and to hear from you.
I guess, at this point, none of this matters now, as Dave Deal died last month.
To the best of my knowledge, YES you were the 1st person to attempt to make the wheels, then came the DSR people, and then Randee/Randar wheels.
I still have the photos Randee took and sent me, of Dave Deal holding his prototype wheel. But Randee approached Dave about the wheel ONLY after you had given up making them, for, as I understand it, the reasons you have outlined above.

Rest In Peace, Dave Deal. You were/are a good friend.
This wasn't the first time Mr. Deal had his artwoork "cloned", "re-produced without permission" or whatever you want to call it, and, unfortunately, I imagine it won't be the last. It just seems to be the way of the world we live in now.

_________________
2003 Samba Chummie Winner- Best Story

"Those that matter, don't mind,
and those that mind, don't matter"

[Morten(Norway)]

[Speedsterboy]

Here we go again, could we please just lock this and move on? This is just sooooooooooooo boring now....

[Morten(Norway)]

[Speedsterboy]

If you're serious about getting a set of the original fake DSR's , contact this Samba member-boris1
Cheers,
Al
DER STEINER RAD/ONLY 50 SETS WORLDWIDE FOREVER

[cavemandan]

can somebody make this easy for me. post a link so i can order some new rims for my bitch. I cant take any more reading this crap about deign and profit. sorry

[hbpoolguy]

Finally got some to fit around the 4 big disks

[alp]

the DSR are now up to $2200 euro which is around $3500 Canadian! a little out of my price range.

[Dave]

Hey, Boris, Thank You for chiming in on this.
It's true; I did meet someone at Bad Camberg, took photos, gave them to the appropriate people, and from there nothing happened. I'm sorry, but I did what I said I would do, and the rest was completely out of my control.
I do recall giving my e-mail address, which at the time was [email protected] (which is no longer valid, hasn't been for over 3 years) to someone who was representing your company, and, having never heard anything back, went on with other things. I wasn't that hard to find, I don't think, my e-mail and phone number were published in every issue of Hot VWs Magazine from May of 2001 to June of 2005.
I haven't heard from Dave Deal in quite a while; since I retired and moved to Northern CA I have corresponded with him maybe once.. if you have Dave Deal's blessing, then I wish you all the success in the world in your endeavor.
And, as a side note, Randee of Randar had nothing to do with any of this, or the fact that at the time he lived close to me. As long as my friend, Dave Deal is getting recognition for his contribution, then I am a happy man
_________________
2003 Samba Chummie Winner- Best Story

"Those that matter, don't mind,
and those that mind, don't matter"

[Speedsterboy]

and there we have it...don't care much for the other wheel anyway, looks like crap compared to your 'real' DSR's.

[boris1]

Now its time to tell some things from our side.

My name is Boris Schmidt I live in the south of Germany and I am not a Fascist or Nazi ! Sorry but to tell me something like that make me very angry ! I am one of the builders of the Der Steiner Rad wheel.

-Summer 2000 we saw the picture of the wheel that Dave Cormack published. My friend an long time Kaefer club buddy Andreas and me discussed to produce two sets, one for his oval and one for my 64 squareback, we want to make them from solid aluminium blocks. But the costs are too high and we stopped the plans.
After we had some time to develop a cast aluminium centre we give a milling form builder the job to build us a form. The costs are high and we planed to build 50 sets of this Iron Cross wheel to finance our dream to ride the nicest wheel on this planet ( our opinion ) on our own cars. We spend hundreds of hours for construction, to build tools for machining and make programmes for the cnc machines. During that time we try to contact Dave Cormack because we want to know more about the story behind the picture and some information about the man who have this wheel in his basement, but we didn’t get any answer. Than we ask a friend of us who work for a German VW magazine to contact him. He do that but I don’t know why but we can’t get any news for a few month.
- February 2001, we get the milling form for the aluminium centre and send a picture to the Volksworld magazine, they published the picture in the march 2001 issue. After a few days I get a phone call from Mr Dave Deal regarding the prototype wheel that was published in a British magazine. Mr Deal was very angry and he told me that he has the rights for the design of the wheel we want to produce. He told me that there is a man, his name was Morton, a Scandinavian, and he have a deal with him to build that wheel. I told him that we try to contact Mr Cormac to get his phone number a few month and that we spend a lot of money and time to be able to produce that wheels and that we cant stop that regarding this fact. He was very angry and I get it too because we tried to get his contact with no sucess. We find out that this situation is very bad for him and for us and that we need a solution that will be good for both sides.
- March 2001, in the night before the Volksworld Show in London we finished the first 5 prototypes mount it on Andreas oval and drive directly the 1000 km to the show to present the wheels. There we met Morton and he was sad that we came out first. But, and that is a fact that Morton see in the same way, the construction sheets he showed us have a lot mistakes and he don’t know it to construct, plan and build a car wheel. We say to him that in fact that he want a set for his car we will give him a huge off to the regular price but he don’t want. During the show Andreas and me discuss how we can solve the problem with Dave Deal and back home I ring him up to find a solution. After a long call to the States we both together find one:

He give us the right to build 50 wheel sets (200 pices) and we have to build him a free set for his baja bug and bring them personally to him to the States and he will get 10% profit sharing for every US sold set or become the general distributor for north America ( including Canada).
He told me that he is happy to have a set of his wheels on the baja bug he won a baja race in the past and, that after that long time his wheels where build. He told me that he found out that we are not the bad guys he suggested when he saw the prototype wheel in the Volksworldmagazine He invited us to stay at his house when we come. We decide that he write the contract and send it us to read and sign. And that he give us the measurements of the wheels that we can build his free set.

- Please note from our side, in the beginning we saw a picture in the size of one inch to one inch of the wheel and we don’t get any support. The wheel we build have five black faces with a polished border. And the form of the faces are a association of an old German medal, conferred hundreds of thousand times in the past since 1813. To build a set for free and bring them to the States means costs of about 5000.00 US $, to bear in mind the 10 % profit sharing for every sold set. Money to pay to someone who don’t have a copyright only the fact that he is the man who design a nearly looking wheel in the 60’s
But that was the deal and in the first it was our common decision ! We don’t want to produce our dream wheel with an unserious beginning and Mr Deal don’t want to see that some guys have a business with his idea for less

- After that telephone call we didn’t get anything, no mail, fax or letter. We try to contact him via phone (speak with his phone box) and mail – no reply from that time till today. Andreas met Mr Cormack at Hessisch Oldendorf or Bad Camberg, I don’t know it exactly, and tell him that we are trying hard to get in contact to Mr Deal regarding the accord and he said to Andreas that he will give Mr Deal a call when he is back. He took some photos from the wheels and tell him that he like the wheels and if we send him high quality pictures there is a opportunity to bring a feature in Hot VW. But sadly nothing happen and all our attempts to get in contact with Mr. Deal were in vain.
Today we know what happen. A short time after I had that phone call with Mr. Deal, Mr. Randee the man who build one of the Rader copies on the marked came up and want to produce the Eisenkreuzrad too. He live in the same area like Mr Cormack and Mr. Deal and to have a conversation with one of them he can driving there by car. He is an US resident and not a far away ( quotation) “ Kraut “. It is much more easy to deal with a guy from the neighbourhood !

- We say, and that means Andreas and me, that we have a deal with Mr. Deal and he is the one who break an engagement! And he supports the Man who produce copies of our Wheel. The first running Eisenkreuzrad is made by Schwarzwald Performance, the company we founded for the wheel production and it’s on the road since March 2001.


The Name „Der Steiner Rad“:

And that fact Mr Deal knows since our second call in 2001. It is unbelievable for me that he is trying to bring us and our customers in that political edge!

Shame on you Mr. Deal for that.

Sorry but everybody who know me personally and my political life know what for a strong hurt this is!

The reason why we use the name Der Steiner Rad is the old movie “Steiner the Iron Cross” with the actor James Coburn. He acs as the Oberfeldwebel Steiner in that movie and he show the viewers that not all German soldiers during the second world war where anti-Semitic unscrupulous killers and don’t have the Fascistic feeling in their minds.
Building a wheel with that style make it necessary to bring a connotation that shows this, especially when we keep in mind that the Bug is the KDF Wagen . It is a tightrope walk to use a German Eisenkreuz wheel on a KDF-Wagen. Especially if you be an European resident.

Mr Deal, the story you write here is not so serious. You say that Rudolf Steiner was a Nazi.
Ok let’s have a look to this man and founder of the Waldorfschools.
Try this link and press “Waldorf education” it is written in english:

http://www.waldorfschule.info/front_content.php?changelang=3

You can read that Steiner died 1925! That was 8 years before Hitler come into power!

And you can read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_schools

That there are existing 958 Waldorschools worldwide, 134 of them in the US….Are they Nazi schools ???
Please abandon the attempt that we are the bad guys and our customers are Nazi’s.
That is not the right way to solve this problem.

Please forgive me my bad English…I am a German guy and it is very difficult to write that in a foreign language.

All the years we don’t write about our side of the story because we think that a forum is not the right place for this kind of communication. Mr Cormack writes this things about us and it seems like he knows us for years.
Sorry, he met Andreas one time and he had the chance to tell him his point of view, he didn’t ! He was a friendly man that like our DSR wheel in this moment, not the one who write that things.
I think he wrote enough about the story that he knows only from one side. We and Georg Otto tried it a lot of times to get in contact with him. He was the only person that had the chance to bring us and Mr Deal together before this situation becoming so bad, he failed and now he is trying to publish his own story. And of course if he want, he will find us or contact us to hear the other side and find his own meaning. But maybe he have not enough time and that was not his job, ok but please stop to tell lies about us that is not fine!
Please stop that !

To our world wide customers, please don’t think that we are Nazi’s. You have the nicest wheel in the world and if you drive your ride you can be sure that you have the original and first Eisenkreuz wheel, the Der Steiner Rad!
We stand for international understanding and we don’t think bad about other people where ever they are from. We visit a lot of foreign countries every year and we want to meet other peoples and have fun together with our common hobby, the old Volkswagen. You bought a product that is produced from enthusiasts for enthusiasts. And all of our customers like the fine quality of our wheels.
Thank you, and that is especially for the forum members of thesamba, that you stand with us and write down your experience with us. A satisfied customer is the best commendation for us.

To the forum users, we don’t want to start a new discussion who is the good guy and who is the bad guy. But we think that nobody has the right to write all this lies about us and nobody has the right to suggest our customers that they driving Nazi wheels.
Everybody has the right to have his own opinion about that situation and who want to buy a set of our wheels is free to order. If there are something you can’t go with or you need more information please contact us or let it and buy another wheel from the marked. I suggested to copy all the emails from the past that we send to Mr. Cormack and Mr. Deal, write down the telephone numbers we use or publish the photo of Mr Deals baja bug he send us, to show everybody that the things I wrote down are the true. But this is not a court room it is a place to discuss things or get information from others. So please see this as a effort to inform you about our side of this situation.
Thanks for reading and have fun with you Volkswagen.

Boris Schmidt
Germany

[Earlybay]

so where can i get a set of these

[bugnut68]

[James D]

[Dave]

[James D]

[Dave]

You're right, James D, I DID have a set of repop EMPI 5 spokes, but I got them off the car in a few months, when my real, restored, original,
Rad *E* r wheels were done, and that's what I have now.
Might interest you to know, that I have the full story of the BRM's and the 5 spokes, and Sprint Stars, straight from Joe Vittone..
Never heard of Joe Vittone?
Figures.


_________________
2003 Samba Chummie Winner- Best Story

"Those that matter, don't mind,
and those that mind, don't matter"