About Us (Me)

RML Wheels is (currently) a one-man operation.

Brad Beardow*, the founder of the iconic aftermarket wheel brand, fifteen52, is the man behind the RML scenes. Brad is also the reason the original RML Snowflake was put into production in 2010. 

No longer working with fifteen52 on a daily basis, Brad wanted to follow up on the RML philosophy he cultivated in 2010, but got left behind as fifteen52 grew larger and became constrained by the realities of being a larger wheel brand.

Today's RML is a step back to when big business concerns, manufacturer MOQ (minimum order quantities - more on that in a bit), and trying to compete with other wheel brands weren't the driving forces behind what designs and sizes made it to market.

RML (Retro-Modern Line) was always supposed to be a niche philosophy where iconic OEM (original equipment manufacturer) wheel designs are modernized to work with newer cars, bigger brakes, and vehicle owners who simply love the "OEM+" aesthetic. Not only can it not be an everything-to-everyone business model, what sets it apart is it absolutely isn't meant to be. Simply put, Brad doesn't believe that a cool cast wheel should only exist if 100,000 people will buy it. Or 10,000 people. Or, in some cases, even 1,000. And this is what makes the RML business model unique in the word of cast wheels.

RML works with manufacturers that understand that, for any given mold, they may only be asked to manufacture as few as 500 wheels from it. Ever. This is far from typical: most manufacturers need to see at least 3,000 wheels from any one mold for the process to be worth their time and money. So how does RML get around this? RML tends to pay much higher mold fees and unit pricing compared to the big boys. That's okay, though: RML doesn't have a ton of fixed overhead to address and is not at the mercy of a multi-level wholesale model. So while RML's retail pricing will never be on the cheap side of the wheel market, it's also understood that RML's targeted customers are willing to pay a little extra for wheels that are unique, high-quality, and very low volume.

At the end of the day it's this unique business model that should allow RML to produce super-cool retro-modern wheel designs that no other cast wheel company would even try to manufacture.

*Just so you know, Brad wrote all of this and it wasn't easy: he hates writing in the third person narrative.