I recently acquired a set of 17″ 8J Breyton Magics for my E34. As it turns out there isn’t much by way of information on these rims on the intarwebs so I thought I’d post a bit up.
My main reason for getting the Magics is that when I bought my E34, it came with the dreaded ‘Metrics’, a wheel which took a tyre of 230 55 M390 size known as ‘TRX’ or ‘TD’ tyres. Unfortunately for me, the only manufacturer left making this specific size of TRX fitment tyre was Dunlop who wanted a mighty £150 per corner. Furthermore, if I were to shred two tyres out on the continent, I’d be well out of luck on getting replacements.
The TRX rims had to go!
Handily, I found an ebay advert for some 17″ 8J Breyton Magics which I won for £200 complete with tyres. The new rims take a 235 45 R17 fitment front and rear (not staggered) which means I can buy tyres for just £45 a corner 
The Breytons are a nice multi-spoke/many-spoke design with a deep dish (8J) which suits the oldskool looks of the E34. I’ve since seen an even deeper set on a French E34 which I presume must have been 8.5J front and rear! The wheels were actually designed for the E39 which means that while the PCD and offset is correct, the centre-bore is just a millimeter or so different. This means you can end up with a slight mis-location of the wheels on the hubs and some nasty vibrations. So, I made a quick trip over to Wheels UK at Coventry who sold me a nice set of machined aluminium spigot rings to locate over the hubs.
The 235 wide summer tyres provide more than enough grip in both wet and dry conditions for the ~150bhp M51 engine in my E34 in terms of handling although they will spin up with a spirited takeoff in the wet. There is a certain amount of ‘tram-lining’ with the current tyres (the tendency to follow white lines a channel patches in the road). I’m informed this can be mitigated by using the v-cut tread pattern tyres on the front so my next set will probably be Linglong L688s.
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