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I have been on the lookout for some proper Kyosho pepperpot style gold alloy wheels. Something genuine, whose color shade looks as close as possible to the golden Option House parts included in the rere Turbo Optima kit. Here is a perfect example: This is exactly what I am after The above photos are also included in the fleabay listing from Pargu. The name itself has got a great reputation amongst the RC community so, after asking the guy just to be sure whether it was the same gold as Kyosho and getting a resounding yes as an answer, I clicked on buy thinking I'd found what I wanted. I also added the nerf bars, which on the listings look just as stunning. The parts came in the mail a couple days ago. While the quality of the pieces is absolutely top notch, unfortunately the color is nothing like the pictures on the listing. It is too saturated and it veers towards orange, resembling more the color of a gold pan RC10 rather than the light gold of the Kyosho parts. At first, blinded by the fantastic quality of the items, I thought whatever, I'll get over it, and this is something I can "work with" after all, it will "grow on me" and so on. But I am starting to change my mind. I do generally settle at some point and don't make a big fuss about things, especially in the case of a hobby, right... but if I have to be true to myself and to the vision I have of this project, I should try and get what I actually want this time instead of settling for less. I am going for an "ultimate shelf queen" kind of look here, so there shouldn't be much room for compromise in the aesthetics department or it will easily defeat the purpose. If I look at all the gold parts at once like in the below photo, my eyes have to do a little too much gymnastics to tie them all together with the wheels. This doesn't happen with the decals and kit's parts alone. It's too bad really, given the fantastic quality of the items, but by now I think these wheels need to go. I contacted Pargu with a polite complaint to see whether by any chance he can dye another set for me in the right gold, but I don't expect to even get an answer. Fortunately, it appears I can just simply return the items which is likely what I'm gonna end up doing, although this is only going to get my money back without solving the situation (better than nothing, of course). Reason why I have asked him if he can anodize a lighter gold is, apparently Pargu's wheels used to be bang on color wise, at least until sometime not long ago. While researching I have found a few examples online of happy customers sporting pepperpots of exactly the hue I want, and they were from Pargu. I wonder, where did those wheels go? What happened in the anodizing process that made him shift from that almost perfect light gold to this coppery/amber thing I am holding today? By the way, I know his products are great and all, but if I may vent for a moment, I find it not very nice that in the listing he conveniently left the photos of what I now assume was his old, light colored stock instead of updating it with something that portrays the actual duller item. Not cool. I am aware that I may have set the bar pretty high this time and that others would be perfectly fine with this, and I really hope I won't come across as unreasonable or too hard to please here, but I work with hues and colors every day and well, this is no small detail. I am going for great results so for this time I am ok spending relatively big bucks on a set of alloy wheels, but at least they've got to look the part. Anyway, enuff with the rant now and back to problem solving. Again, this is the look I am after: It's at this point that I started falling deeper into this sort of gold plated rabbit hole. Upon further research last night, I got the impression that these wheels are nowhere to be found nowadays, at least not in the light shade I am after. There is a bunch of other brands out there, but none seem to really look the part: the plastic JC racing ones look gold plated but way too blingy, and any other alloy alternative has the same exact issue of mine, they actually look even darker. Fun fact, Yeah Racing offers alloy wheels in both pepperpot Turbo Optima and "Peugeot" Optima Mid style, but they are anodized in different gold: while the first ones are sadly in the darker shade, the latter seem to be in the color I want. If it's got to come to a compromise, I might consider Optima Mid rims to go on my Turbo Optima, as long as the color is good enough. I do ideally want the pepperpots though, and I'm still willing to go to a certain extent to find them. Now finally on with the questions for the Optimaniacs amongs us. Does anybody know about any good alloy pepperpots whose gold shade would be close enough to Kyosho? Did Option House ever produce them at all, or am I after something that never even existed? They do figure online, in photos like the ones above but by now, after researching extensively, I feel as if I'm going after Unicorn poo 😅 Are there other similar alternatives you know of? For instance, I could gladly settle for something like this below if the color was right like in the photo, but after further research and comparison it seems to be yet another case of Pargu going lighter in the past vs darker nowadays. Lastly, in the remote case anybody has a set of these apparently non-existing wheels he is willing to part with to contribute to my gold rush here, they can send me a PM Any help is appreciated, thanks for reading and thanks in advance to whoever wants to chime in with their knowledge or opinions. Cheers, Ferruz