[hippari]

I can understand how CPR can be seen as biased what with Rotas being Filipino made and there being outlets in the PI like Greenhills where you can purchase a sack of Raybans for four dollars, but even Mark Arcenal in all his swagapino existence is one of the biggest detractors of Rotas and any wheel company that doesn't charge $500+ a wheel. I would say he is anti-copycats, but you can find a wheel that looks like a TE37 or LM Mesh on everyone's catalog from SSR to Enkei and last I checked you still get pogi points from Fatlace for having those.

As for the Gucci thing, I didn't intend to bring up the whole counterfeit bags issue. Faking a label is not the same as repping a design because, well, how many ways can you really do do spokes? There's a bigger difference between XXR513's and Watanabe R8's than there is between Work Meisters and SSR Professors. When Rota crosses the branding line and starts throwing red labels that say "Ray's Engineering" onto their grids, I'll join up with the mob tossing them into the grease fire, but till then I'm really meh'd out about it.

I mentioned Gucci mostly because despite having previously owned a Miata, I am not a women's handbag aficionado. Gucci for me is the household name for an unreasonably expensive fashion accessory. For people who really actually give any sort of a shit about this whole real/fake wheels thing, that's pretty much what these wheels are. No one's actually seriously racing on Work Varianzas or Rotiforms. I'd probably see more gravity cast 6ULs or RPF-1's at the track than anything else. There are also the weekend warriors out there staying alive on their Rotas and Drags no doubt, but really, these wheels are all being sold to people who are gonna park their car and want it to look fresh. And the issue at that point is the same reason threads like these start: the morality of whether those center caps on the generic looking meshes have a swoopy R or a swoopy Vs.