When I bought my Prius in January, The wheels on the Touring models I looked at were like the Red Car from Toyota Brochure. Last tow new new owners pictures I have seen posted had much cooler looking wheels like the ones on Spideman's Silver Pine Mica ride. What gives, I probably would have bought the Touring one with those wheels.
Does the (pseudo-)motion blur confuse you? The blur looks fake to me, but it obscures the "facets" of the wheel spokes.
The pictures shown by the OP do appear to be the standard touring wheels. I believe the better looking ones referenced are the same wheels with the plastic covers removed. I would agree that they look better without the covers.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hschuck @ May 6 2007, 10:52 PM) [snapback]436697[/snapback]</div> \\ I did noticed after I posted the photos that they looked nearly identical, so I was going to try and scan a picuture of the wheel from the toyota bochure, but my scanner isn't playing nice. The ones I am talking about look to be painted dark grey color. Could be with the platic covers removed, but I pulled the covers off both before I bought, and I could have sworn both were just beauty rings. The ones on the SPM photo above look like full wheel covers. I guess a trip to the dealer might help me figure out what I was looking at that day.
The non-Touring has ring covers. The Touring has the large fake spoked wheel covers (silver). The Touring wheels are gun metal gray, spoked, with the spokes curved into the hub. I think they look nice, but it probably depends on the color of the car as to whether they match or look good.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(David Beale @ May 7 2007, 07:01 AM) [snapback]436786[/snapback]</div> Those gunmetal rims work well with MGP
The rims pictured in the Brochure (on the last page, where the options/features are listed) are the touring rims without the covers. The two pictures posted here include the covers. The red one has some fake (photoshopped) motion blur to it. Unfortunately Toyota does not include center caps with the touring edition. If you remove the covers, you have open wheel hubs. Not a big deal as they are the same center caps as used on the standard Prius wheels. I ordered four of them for about $12 each. They look really nice on my Barcelona Red. -btc
