Made in California: HRE Performance Wheels
From left, Patrick Moran, creative director; Chris Luhnow, chairman and CEO; and Alan Peltier, president, in the headquarters of HRE Performance Wheels. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Aluminum wheel blanks in the HRE Performance Wheels manufacturing plant. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Cooling liquid splashes around as an automated cutter shapes an aluminum wheel at HRE Performance Wheels. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
A worker polishes a solid aluminum wheel at HRE Performance Wheels. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Sammy Hermosillo coats an aluminum rim with red powder before it’s baked to a hard, glossy surface. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Melissa Ann Dixon carves the sharp edges from a solid aluminum wheel. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Fernando Garcia washes a custom-milled and powder-coated rim. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
A display shows aluminum is machined from a cylinder of metal at the left to a finished wheel at the right. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
Guy Atherton, domestic sales manager for HRE Performance Wheels, sits in a Lamborghini with aluminum rims. The front rims retail for $2,300 each and and the wider back rims sell for $2,400 each. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)