[ApexWheels]

Our popular Split 5 Spoke design at an unbeatable price point

We’re excited to announce the launch of our all-new VS-5. With the VS-5, Apex delivers our iconic split 5-spoke style in a high-performance flow-formed package for the first time ever. Within its price bracket, the flow-formed VS-5 offers huge performance for your dollar, and brings features that are typically exclusive to forged wheels to the flow-formed market. Its performance stacks up impressively to the forged VS-5RS, making it an unbeatable value.

We do flow-formed differently. Since the introduction of the ARC-8, Apex has focused on flow-formed performance wheels. The world today is full of small forged wheel brands using off-the-shelf blanks that compromise on weight, performance, and strength. Forged doesn’t automatically mean a wheel is superior to a cast or flow-formed design. The VS-5 will outperform many under-engineered forged wheels on the market today while retaining the innate cost advantages of flow-formed wheels. These wheels also leverage our massive library of OE 3d scans and aftermarket brakes to ensure ideal fitment and concavity on an application-specific basis. Our engineers focused on producing a wide range of versatile molds that gave them the freedom to develop multiple radically different wheel fitments that BMW owners have come to expect from the Apex catalog without compromising on wheel design, stiffness and weight.

See The Wheels

These wheels have a number of features Apex customers have come to expect and demand. The inner lip of the wheels feature a more robust design that resists bending better than a typical cast or flow formed wheel in the most vulnerable area of the wheel. The barrels of these wheels also use a zero degree draft which maximizes barrel-side brake clearance compared to a sloping design. The area around the lug seats was widened and optimized to allow the use of larder diameter wheel hardware and thicker impact sockets ensuring anyone needing the ability to quickly swap wheels in the hot pits has room to spare.

The spokes themselves are side-milled to reduce rotational mass as much as possible. This is a practical feature but also acheives a remarkable aesthetic similarity to the forged VS-5RS. In terms of weight, we know many of you will be curious to know how these new flow formed wheels compare to the forged VS-5RS. On average, the flow formed wheels are 2-2.5lbs heavier than their equivalent forged fitment. As an example, a VS-5 in a popular 18x9” ET30 BMW fitment weighs 19.8 lbs, while the forged version weighs 17.9 lbs. The delta in weight between these wheels will depend on the specfic fitment and diameter.

Considering how light the Sprint Line VS-5RS is, bringing the difference between these 2 construction types down to these margins while retaining excellent brake clearance and the widest range of supported applications of any Apex flow formed wheel at launch was no easy feat. Our years of flow-forming experience paid dividends and allowed us to produce a competetive product at a price any enthusiast can afford. Our forged Sprint Line and Enduro line wheels remain the pinnacle of performance and are targeted motorsport product, but drivers that need to stretch the budget to squeeze in one more track day can be confident in the new VS-5. If you’d like more details on the wider VS-5 launch, head over to our blog here.

The center bowl area of the VS-5 was one of the more challenging aspects of producing this design as a flow formed wheel. The complex geometry around the lug mounting holes and the mold design of the flow formed wheel meant that larger cap sizes were particularly difficult to produce at scale especially when factoring in other markets like 5x112 BMW wheels or JDM/domestic markets. The forged VS-5RS is designed on a per fitment basis with more freedom in this area because of how it is machined. The flow formed wheels were fundamentally more limited. Instead of abandoning OE cap compatibility entirely to run a dedicated Apex Cap size, we opted to use the smaller cap size used by new 5x112 bolt pattern BMWs across all the BMW fitments. This means that even 5x120 BMW VS-5s will take the smaller 56.1mm diameter centercap size, OE part number 36-13-6-850-834. This gives VS-5 owners a wide range of Genuine BMW cap options that you can source from us, your local BMW dealer or other aftermarket resellers. While 5x120 customers won’t be able to reuse the caps that came with their car, we fought to retain an OE option that you could easily source from any supplier to give you the clean OE aesthetic so many of you enjoy while improving the efficiency and reducing the cost of this design. For those of you who Like the alternate colors of Apex branded caps, we have a number of alternate color options available on our website here under cap size 1021.

The New Look of Flow-Formed

While our customers have always appreciated the incredible performance gains that the VS-5RS offered, an undeniable part of the appeal of those wheels are their aesthetics. The new VS-5 delivers the same split 5-spoke design aesthetic as its forged counterparts to a whole new group of enthusiasts. We’ve already shot a number of cars on these wheels and will be adding more in the future. Head over to our VS-5 Gallery to see these wheels on a range of BMWs.

VS-5 On-car Gallery

In terms of fitments, a wide range of of sizes will be available initially:

These wheels will be produced in 4 finishes for BMW fitments: 3 are standard colors from our BMW lineup: Anthracite, Race Silver, Satin Black. Hyper Black is also available for the first time ever on a design other than our ARC-8 and looks fantastic on the VS-5.

Hyper black



Anthracite



Race Silver



Satin Black



Support for the Street and Track.

Apex Wheels is about more than just the wheels. Our pre and post purchase support has helped enthusiasts buy and maintain their wheels for years. Whether you’re reviewing our updated fitment guides or taking advantage of the wheel replacement program after a nasty off track incident, Apex has you covered.

Nearly all VS-5 18" fitments are in-stock and will ship within 5 days of ordering, and pre-order begins today for 17" and 19" fitments, with 15% off and FREE shipping on pre-orders. 19" fitments will ship in May and 17" will ship in July. They are available for pre-order with a 25% deposit required with the remainder of the balance collected before the wheels ship out later this year.

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