1961: Painted hub caps

[Rob M.]

Hi all,

While scanning a August 1960 article on the 1961 Corvette I noticed something strange. The center of the hubcap was painted on this car. This must have been a extremely early car (proto?) if you take the date of the article in account. Did anyone else have info on this matter (see photo below in the article).

[Mike E.]

Re: 1961: Painted hub caps

A GM styling exercise photo that was released to a magazine--NOT a picture of a production car.

[Tom B.]

Re: 1961: Painted hub caps

You will run into a car occasionally that has the cap centers painted like that. It used to be much more common in the '60s for someone to add that styling touch to their car than it is today. There is a member on the CAC that posted a picture of his car looking identical to the styling picture you showed. It was a before and after. He changed from whites and caps to real knock off Halibrands. The link to the thread is below.

Tom




http://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/forums/showthr

[Tom B.]

Re: 1961: Painted hub caps

Here's the after picture.

[Rob M.]

Re: 1961: Painted hub caps

Hi Tom,

I think it does look kind of nice (the center piece painted) allthough, ofcourse, I realize on my '59 it out of the question ;-)

greetings and thanks for taking the time to post the images,
Rob.

[Dave F.]

Re: 1961: Painted hub caps

Wow, those Halibrands look sharp.

-Dave

[Tom B.]

Re: 1961: Painted hub caps

I was wrong. Talking to the owner I found out that the wheels are really the Hal look-alikes made by PS Engineering. The car has one coil cut on the front springs and longer shackles on the rear to lower it a little.