Wooden spoke Wheels were used a lot by cars and trucks before 1925 in U.S.

I took this picture of an old Wood Spoke wheel in 2012 near Ventana Inn in the Big Sur Area of California on Highway 1.

OLD WOODEN SPOKE WHEEL

 

If you are interested in seeing more photos like this go to Google Images and type in:

 

"Wood Spoke Wheels"

Before around 1925 or 1930 most cars had these types of wheels mostly because roads weren't paved except in bigger cities. So, if you were going between big cities especially in the Western United States metal wheels were going to get bent up and unuseful on dirt or rock roads. However, when highways were built of asphalt and cement enough people started moving over to all metal wheels.

 

People seldom drove faster than 25 miles per hour on wooden spoke wheels because it wasn't safe except on a few roads to do this. 

Basically, a covered wagon and carriage evolved into a truck and a car over time. So, the natural evolution from wooden spoke covered wagons and carriages evolved to truck and car this way. Metal wheels were more similar to what we had on trains and didn't really have any resemblance at all of a wagon or carriage at least in the late 1800s and early 1900s.