Hi Apophis,

In the one i am working on i started from a cylinder and using some boolean operation then fillet on the line selection.

Revolve will do the trick for the curvature. The bar in the wheel was made with sweep 2 rails.

This is another test i did with a plain sphere and cylinder with the boolean and fillet operation

Have you ever seen this one in Rhino http://www.toxiclab.org/tutorial.asp?ID=124

I found that Rhino3d has good tutorial for making a car. I registered on there web site (it is free) and you can download the tutorial parts. the one about the rim should help you out. http://www.rhino3d.tv/english/info/accessdenied.php

or Here http://www.carbodydesign.com/