Styling has always played a very important role in automobile design. This factor as well as the demands of new safety legislation in Europe and through out the world makes it a very competitive industry. This often leads to complex car designs which need to be produced and proof tested with a minimum lead time and expenditure. But these new designs and manufacturing technologies must be reliable, thus the automobile manufacturer is increasingly investigating and developing new design tools to help improve the quality of their products. Computer aided engineering helps reduce the time necessary to produce a new design. It also improves the quality of design. In this study computer aided design, finite element analysis and fatigue life prediction are the tools which have been used. The design of a cast aluminium alloy wheel has been optimised using the Finite Element technique. It simulates the behaviour of the wheel under it's working load conditions. IDEAS Master Series has been used to develop a three dimensional linear elastic structural model. The wheel has been loaded with static load cases which represent the working load conditions. Maximum and minimum principal stresses were calculated and a comparison of these with measured test results was made to establish a correlation with acceptable accuracy. Stresstime histories from the tested wheel are used for this purpose. Once the predicted results were validated, the technique was used to simulate stress patterns under a variety of possible load cases. The mechanism of load transfer from the tyre to the wheel rim was studied in detail and suggestions made as to how to optimise the FEA's model load cases. It was found that the wheel's stress level in the critical areas was below the material's allowable fatigue stress level. Thus, the geometry of the wheel has been modified to optimise the volume of the aluminium alloy used in the manufacture of the wheel, yet still keep the stress amplitudes to an acceptable level. Finally, a Procedure for the fatigue life prediction of the wheel was developed to verify that the actual lifetime of the wheel was greater than, or at least equal to the required lifetime using the Local Stress approach. Turbo Pascal is the programming language used here.