WALD is one of those Japanese names that overseas buyers meet as a wheel brand and assume has always been one. It has not. It started as a Mercedes-Benz tuning shop in Osaka, and the wheels came later.
The Short Version
- Founded May 1990 in Osaka as a Mercedes-Benz specialist, incorporated in July 1992.
- The WALD name arrived in 1994, when a division was set up to develop and manufacture original products.
- Renamed to WALD Co., Ltd. in 2002.
- The name is a pun. The representative’s surname reads Mori; Wald is German for forest, which in Japanese is also mori.
- Black Bison is the flagship line — wide-body and aero, now spanning everything from the Mercedes G-Class to the Suzuki Jimny.
From Mercedes Shop to Brand
The sequence is worth laying out, because it explains what the company is.
WALD began in May 1990 as a tuning shop specialising in Mercedes-Benz, under a different name. It incorporated in July 1992. The WALD JAPAN division was established in 1994 to develop and manufacture its own products rather than only work on other people’s cars — and that is the point at which it became a brand. The corporate name followed in 2002.
The German-car specialisation in the origin story is not incidental. A company that started by making Mercedes look different is a company whose wheels were designed to sit under a Mercedes, and that shows in the sizes and offsets it has always favoured.
What the Company Actually Makes
Both wheels and body parts, which is unusual. Most Japanese wheel brands make wheels; most aero brands make aero. WALD does aluminium wheels, body and aero parts for high-end vehicles, plus suspension, lighting and interior parts.
There is one relationship that deserves attention because it is more than styling. WALD has done co-development work with Toyota through Modellista, Toyota’s in-house customising arm, supplied as genuine factory options on models including the Ractis and Estima.
That is a real OEM-adjacent credential. A company that Toyota will list in its own genuine-accessory catalogue is operating to a different standard than a pure aftermarket styling house.
WALD is also a member of NAPAC, the Japanese aftermarket body that includes JAWA — the organisation behind the JWL and VIA wheel marks. That membership is consistent with WALD manufacturing and certifying wheels rather than simply badging them.
Black Bison
Black Bison is WALD’s top-tier line and the name most people know. It is a wide-body and aero treatment — bumpers, over-fenders, aggressive proportions — rather than a wheel model, though WALD wheels are the natural companion.
The range it covers now is remarkably wide: Mercedes G-Class, Toyota Land Cruiser 300, Aston Martin DBX, Suzuki Jimny and Jimny Sierra, plus a long list of Mercedes saloons and SUVs.
The Jimny is the interesting one. A styling house that began with S-Class Mercedes now sells a wide-body kit for a kei-class 4×4. That tells you something about where the Japanese market went.
We could not establish when Black Bison started. A 2008 Tokyo Auto Salon debut circulates without a citation we could confirm; we can document a kit existing by 2014. The line is clearly long-standing, and we are not going to invent a birthday for it.
What This Means When You Are Buying
WALD wheels are designed around heavy European cars. Large diameters, offsets suited to Mercedes and Land Cruiser geometry, and styling that assumes a big car underneath. On a light Japanese sports car they will usually be the wrong size before they are the wrong look.
Check the JWL and VIA marks like any other Japanese wheel. WALD sits inside the Japanese certification system; the marks should be there, on the front where you can read them with the wheel mounted.
Beware “WALD style.” A brand whose entire proposition is a distinctive look is a brand that gets copied. The same reasoning we set out for the BBS RS applies: a legally-sold lookalike under its own name is a different thing from a wheel sold as a WALD.
What We Could Not Verify
- The company’s own site. wald.co.jp repeatedly timed out on us. Everything above comes from Japanese secondary sources that agree with each other and from the NAPAC member directory — not from a page we loaded ourselves. Current capital and the representative director’s full name remain unconfirmed.
- The original company name. Rendered in Japanese katakana; the romanisation is ambiguous, so we have not printed it.
- When the Black Bison line began, and which vehicle received the first kit.
- Whether WALD manufactures wheels itself or has them made. No source disclosed a foundry or manufacturing partner.
- Any motorsport programme. Unlike BBS or OZ, we found none.
Related Guides
- BBS — the other brand where the German name misleads
- WORK Wheels — the Osaka neighbour
- Toyota Alphard & Vellfire — the platform WALD styling lives on in Japan
- Toyota Land Cruiser
Finding WALD Wheels
WALD is a domestic Japanese brand with a domestic used market, and sets rarely leave the country on their own. Tell us the vehicle and the diameter you are after through the Request page.