Rocket Wheel Industries

Rocket Wheel Industries is a wheel manufacturing company founded by Raymond Bleiweis. Located in Los Angeles, California, Raymond, who also founded Keystone, left his position as President of Keystone in 1965 to found Rocket. According to an article in Speed & Custom Equipment News April 1966, friends and business advisors claimed that the market was saturated with chrome wheels, and they told Raymond that his new company wouldn't survive.

Early in 1966 Rocket Wheel Industries had become one of the most successful wheel producers in the US. Specializing in quality at popular prices, the business was booming, and when the Speed & Custom Equipment News hit print, Raymond was in the process of moving from a 16,000 square foot shop to a manufacturing plant that used well over 25,000 square feet.

The Rocket Clicker

The Rocket "Clicker" was an innovative wheel that cost a giant amount of money and put Raymond's company in jeopardy in many ways. "When they build a two-piece mag," Keith Christensen told Sondre Kvipt of Kustomrama in 2020, "the center is aluminum polished or plated, and a dog ear of steel is cast into the tip of each spoke so they could weld it to the outer part of the rim." Ray was talked into a new method that eliminated the welding portion of the process. "He was very excited and took me to the machine shop and showed his newest process." Keith recalled that they would put two round half-moon recessed holes about a 1/2 inch deep on the tip of each spoke, "then the spoke center was placed into the outer, and the pair was put on a roller press that had a round wheel in the tip end of it. After the two parts were aligned, the roller would roll around the middle of the outer rim and press the steel into the holes. These dimples would have the pressed metal shoved down into them and lock the two parts of the mag together. It worked and saved a ton of time and material!" Ray built a vast amount of rims this way in all of his 2 piece mag group. Then came the problem. "After a month or two of the wheels being mounted on cars, and after a lot of starting and stopping of the car, it wore the steel that was shoved down into the holes, and the center would click both ways. Accelerating or decelerating. Hence the famous name a "Rocket Clicker." Ray had to find and recall all the wheels built this way! "What a costly task!" Keith recalled him having piles of them laying everywhere. "Boxed ones he bought back from the stores! A total, expensive fiasco!"