The Short Version
- Kranze is a Weds house brand, not an acquired company — unlike Super Star, which Weds bought.
- Three-piece construction, confirmed on Weds’ own spec sheets.
- VIA load ratings are published per configuration — 540 to 860 kg.
- Vishunu is discontinued. “Cerberus” does not appear to exist.
Where Kranze Sits
Weds runs a lot of badges and it is not obvious from outside which are its own. Weds’ own site navigation settles it.
| Category | Brands |
|---|---|
| Weds original products | KRANZE, WedsSport, MAVERICK, F ZERO, LEONIS, NOVARIS, WEDS ADVENTURE, RIZLEY, Delmore, Gyraft, NeoCarrow, STYLISH WHEELS, RACING FORG |
| Collaboration brands | Yoshimura WRS, 11R, IRVINE, JIMLINE TYPE2, LXCP and others |
| Handling (distributed) brands | Super Star, Yeti Snow Net |
Note the distinction, because it matters. Super Star is a separate consolidated subsidiary — a formerly independent wheel brand of about twenty-five years’ standing whose business Weds acquired in 2006, per Weds’ own group-companies page. Kranze is not that. It is a Weds in-house original-product brand, positioned at the top of the VIP and luxury end of the range.
This is the same kind of structural question we untangled at AME and KYOHO, where several apparently independent badges turned out to be one company. Japanese wheel groups do this constantly, and it is worth knowing whose engineering you are actually buying.
The Current Lineup
From Weds’ live Kranze listing: Bertaler, Bazreia ID, LXZ FORGED, Versam (plus 030EVO and Klein Form), Schritt (plus 855EVO), Vierharm (plus 225EVO), Weaval (plus 100EVO), and Felsen (plus 358EVO).
Two corrections to names that circulate:
- Vishunu is discontinued. It appears only on Weds’ own archived-models page.
- “Cerberus” — we found no trace of it on either the current or the discontinued listings. If it existed it is not on Weds’ site now.
Construction and Load Ratings
Weds publishes a proper specification and price PDF per model, and the Bazreia ID sheet is unusually informative.
Every size and finish table is labelled 〔3ピース〕 — three-piece. And each bolt-pattern and hub configuration carries a VIA load rating in kilograms:
- 860 kg, 840 kg, 815 kg, 690 kg and 540 kg, depending on the PCD and hub combination
That is a genuinely useful thing to publish and very few brands do it per configuration. We spent the Enkei RPF1 article noting that no load rating was published at all; Weds gives you one for every variant.
Pay attention to the spread. 540 kg to 860 kg is a 60 per cent range within one model. If you are putting these on something heavy — and Kranze’s whole market is large saloons and vans — the configuration you pick determines whether the wheel is adequate. Our load rating guide covers the arithmetic.
Sizes and Fitments
From the Bazreia ID sheet: 18 to 22 inch, with PCDs of 5-100, 5-114.3, 5-112, 5-120 and 6-139.7 — the last on 22-inch reverse-rim only, which is the van and truck fitment.
Disc types offered per size include reverse rim, normal rim, super flange and curl flange. That is a three-piece maker’s menu: you are choosing a face depth and a rim profile, not picking a part number off a shelf.
Where They Are Made
We could not pin this down, and the honest answer is more interesting than a guess.
Weds’ own business-description page states that its original products are manufactured both domestically and overseas, then consolidated through its Aichi logistics centre before distribution. It does not break that down by brand or model.
So we can tell you Weds sources original products from Japan and abroad. We cannot tell you which applies to Kranze specifically, and we are not going to assume that a premium badge means domestic production.
What We Could Not Verify
- Whether Kranze specifically is made in Japan or overseas.
- Whether the centre disc is cast or forged. Three-piece construction is confirmed; the disc’s forming method is not stated on the pages we read. Note that one model in the range is named “LXZ FORGED”, which implies the others may not be.
- Explicit JWL marking. VIA is confirmed by the published load ratings; JWL marks are usually shown as a logo image, which we could not read from the text.
- Made-to-order status and lead times. Not addressed on any Kranze page we read, though the face-and-rim menu implies build-to-order.
- Any “Cerberus” model.