The Detroit Wheels were an American rock band, formed in Detroit in 1964. They served as Mitch Ryder's backup band from 1964 to 1967. The band had a number of top twenty hits in the mid-1960s before lead singer Ryder was enticed away by Bob Crewe with offers of a solo career, after which the group quickly dissolved. Two of its former members, Jim McCarty and Johnny "Bee" Badanjek, later reunited to establish the nucleus of a new band called The Rockets, after McCarty found some fame with the hard rock outfit Cactus.