Spinner (wheel)
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A spinner is an automotive accessory popular within the hip-hop community.
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[edit] Description
Spinners are decorative ornaments that spin independently inside of a wheel itself when the vehicle is in motion, and continue to spin once the vehicle has come to a stop. Being an attachment to the car's wheel, spinners operate by using one or more roller bearings to isolate the spinner from the wheel, allowing it to turn while the wheel is at rest. The spinner's own momentum helps it overcome what little friction is transmitted through the bearing. When the car is in motion, the small amount of friction transmitted through the bearing sets the spinner in motion.
[edit] Invention
In October 1992, a United States wheel spinner patent was filed by American inventor James D. Gragg. The American Tru Spinners Wheel Enhancer patent was issued on March 1, 1994, making it the first patent of its kind.[1] This patent became known as "Tru Spinners". A foreign patent for Tru Spinners was later issued in October 1997.
The invention of the spinner is generally attributed to David Fowlkes Jr. Fowlkes graduated from Rufus King High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin before moving on to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design when he was 17. With a sketch and a prototype Fowlkes created the first spinner for a design project in 1990. The prototype then remained stored until 1998 when Fowlkes was working at Reebok and met his future business partners, Hank Seemore, and Ian Hardman. Together the three formed Davin Wheels with a $250,000 loan from the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp.
In the 1995 film Batman Forever, the wheels on the Batmobile used a counter-rotating gear assembly to keep the bat-emblem hubcaps upright when the wheels were in motion. The technology was never marketed, however it currently is used on Rolls Royce cars' hubcaps in order to keep the "RR" logo horizontally oriented.
[edit] Introduction to market
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American Tru Spinners originally introduced free-spinning wheel enhancers in 1994 by appearing on select custom cars and hot rods for car shows. Davin Wheels later introduced a version at the Los Angeles Auto Show. When Davin Wheels was unable to obtain a booth at the Auto Show, they were invited to join another vendor at the show, NBA star Latrell Sprewell's Sprewell Racing. Coincidentally, Sprewell is a Milwaukee native. For this reason, spinners are sometimes also called "Sprewells".
American Tru Spinners original patent (U.S. Patent 5,290,094 issued March 1, 1994 / Foreign 187,015 Oct. 27, 1997) for free-spinning wheel enhancing.
Davin Wheels holds the patent (U.S. Patent 6,554,370 issued April 29,2003) for the spinning technology, called the continuous motion wheel.
[edit] Popularity
Spinners were popularized by the 2003 Three 6 Mafia single "Ridin' Spinners", and other popular songs by T.I., Nelly, 50 Cent, Master P, DJ Quik, Redman, Baby, Twista, Dem Franchize Boyz and Big Tymers. Multiple music videos have featured the use of spinners. Spinners have also been features in many television shows including MTV's "Cribs," ESPN's "The Life," BET's "How I'm Living," and "NBA Inside Stuff." Spinners have been further popularized by many celebrities who use them including, Latrell Sprewell, Hulk Hogan, Shaquille O'Neal, Busta Rhymes, Donovan McNabb, and Allen Iverson.
The Rolls-Royce Phantom has anti-spinners — the "RR" logo in the center of the hub is mounted on a spinner with an offset weight designed to ensure that the logo is always the right way up when the car is parked. The hubometers used on large trucks and buses operates by this same principle.
In late 2004, special basketball shoes called Sprees, by DaDa Footware, featuring a miniaturized spinner rim became available.
Professional wrestler John Cena also made his own customised versions of the WWE United States Championship and WWE Championship belts during his reigns, both of which featured spinners on the belt.
The monster trucks Escalade and Annihilator use spinners specially designed for their large wheels and to take the large amounts of abuse.
[edit] Historical
The term spinner hubcaps has been in use since the 1950s, but describes a different item from those used today.
These classic spinner caps feature a rigidly mounted propeller-like center element, usually with two or three projecting "blades", intended to simulate the knock-off hubs that were used on vintage racing vehicles and classic sports cars.
These spinner hubcaps were most often an optional appearance upgrade to the standard equipment hubcaps or full wheel covers that attached to stamped steel wheels.
These hubcaps were the inspiration for a Detroit-area R&B/soul group, The Domingoes, to rename themselves The Spinners in the late 1950s. A second-tier Motown act in the 1960s, the Spinners would go on, in the early 1970s, to score a string of hits in the Philly soul style.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ United States Patent Office. USPTO.
