whats a stationary hub cap?

It does look cool, but usually only works on a car with skirts, as doing the rear is much more difficult.

 

For the rear, just make a bracket and screw the cap to the fender. Works best with skirts.

 

i was just trying to figure out earlier how the hell you would do the rear wheels, didn't come up with nothin'. Don't like the bracket idea too much unless someone came up with something that was REALLY not noticeable.

 

Yeah, it may be a little hard to do on a fender-less car.

 

what is a stationary hubcap?

I just thought it was a hubcap hanging on a wall 'til you found 3 others that matched.

 

The first time I ever saw stationary hubcaps was by our own "Mikes51" on his Merc going down Spring Street a few years ago.

Freaky!

Even though I immediately figured out how it was done in my head - my subconcious mind just couldn't get past the fact that the car was floating down the street (a few beers didn't hurt the affect either, I suppose). His has a real nice light grey flame design that always trails back instead of spinning. I dug it, and noted all the fellow onlookers "WOohs" and "What the ----?"s

Mike, can you post a pick of your flamed caps?

 

The rears could be done with a mount similar to the wire hubcap mounts, use a bearing mounted to the center so the cap is free to turn, (much like the new spinner wheels) then put a weight inside the cap to keep it in one place while moving.

 

Yeah... for the ball bearing cap with weights to keep it pointed the right way, look at the skull centers on Elvira's T-Bird.

I think the old "Road Runner" moon disc that was a rare MOPAR option for the front wheel was made to thread onto the spindle in lieu of a dust cap on the hub. There was some screwed up Quentin Tarentino movie that showed those wheelcovers in action... took place in Vegas, IIRC.

 

Here's a pic of the caps behind the radiator cap of the Surf Rod.

The best reaction I had was at a gas station. As I was pulling out, a guy came running after the car, shouting,
"Hey Dude! Stop! Something's wrong with your wheel".

Does anyone remember the Intel promotion of the Intel bunnys? I heard there was a custom bus built as part of that advertising program. The bus was done by Barris, I believe, and it had "floaters" on all the wheels. The Intel logo was on all the hubcaps.

 

G V Gordon, thats a great idea. Then another thought popped in, do you think at higher speeds the rear ones would act like a pendulum or even a clutch fan? It would be very interesting to see.

 

man

is sounds like none of you guys are mexicans.......

 

This isn't a new idea at all. Somewhere I have a pic of a new 37 Ford with a spindle mount dealer sign.

 

[ QUOTE ]
This isn't a new idea at all. Somewhere I have a pic of a new 37 Ford with a spindle mount dealer sign.

[/ QUOTE ]

That confirms it, some old timer told me they had them in the forties in L.A.. He also said they had advertisements on them.

 

Mike -

Are your caps mounted to the end of the spindle? Do you run any sort of dust cap?

I have a budy building a 51 Merc and he wants to do something similar, but does'nt like the idea of no dust cap on the hub.

Thanks,

Neal

 

Thanks to this thread I was able to float my caps before billetproof 0h-six. Next I will be mouinting the valve stem on the backside of the rim. Just to bring the cap closer to rim. Also add a bullet to the center of hub. The pic shows how far off the rim the cap sits.

 

I love the way those look on customs. Makes it look like the car is being dragged along without the wheels spinnning.

 

I would think you could drill a close tolerance hole through the dust cap to give your bearings some protection.

 

I first saw this done in 1960 - moon discs on a 53 Olds hardtop
The front moons were stationary and had the words "ROLLIN ROCKET' lettered on them. That thing had a 394 in it and it MOVED!!

The guy that owned bought the first 409 Chev I ever saw - a 1961!!!!

 

aww damn!!! I thought for sure pompadourpete was back.

 

There is a car here on the right coast called The Slider, I think its a Mopar, with them on all four wheels, looks cool as hell. Not knew, a buddy ran a set of moons on the front of his 34 Plymouth at the drags back in the 60s, had a star painted on them.

 

Now this is the kind of stuff I read through all the crap post to find. Good do it yo self tec.

 

didn't they make naked lady hubcabs like that? i remember seeing them at lowrider shows about ten years ago

 

The first and only time I ever saw this in person was as a kid watching a '50's Merc glide down the street. This was circa 1982, in the middle of Wyoming. The car was a full on, pale yellow traditional custom, the only one I can remember seeing in that town. It had skirts out back, but in the front was this moon disc, with yellow scallops painted on it. And they stayed in one spot as the car "floated" down the road.

I will never forget that car!

Nope, it ain't novel, but really cool of pulled off right. Now I think the effect is diminished due to the 20whatever inch spinners, IMHO.

 

We made floaters on a club members car with some cross bar hub caps.
Makes people double check then triple check to make sure there not just seeing things...lol

 

Does anyone remember the "Extremeliner" 37ish woody wagon? Was a Posies build. Had cool fender skirts with some rocketeer looking trim on them, and the front wheels had the same thing. Those front wheel things were stationary. Always thought that was cool, first time I'd seen those.

Here's a link to a pic.

http://www.oldwoodies.com/img/events/nsra_nat01/nsra01_34.jpg

 

Talked to Dennis (Thunderroad) at BP06 about his setup. Very clean, wish I could of seen it drive by. Next time. The idea of tricking the eye is always cool. Thanks for bring this old post up for some of the newer guys to read through.

Jon

 

thanks tredboy for bringing this to my attention. makes a lot of sense now.

 

Must be just the center piece is cast and stationary?

1971-1973 or so full size Pontiacs use a cap that looks a lot like that. The fins are plastic and it's a bitch to find a set with good fins on all of them. Center cap is smaller, but would be easy to change. They're 15" caps if anyone likes the look. Usually pretty cheap when they do turn up -

Incedentally, if you run full size stationary caps, what do you do for valve stems? They'd need to be extra short to clear the cap, or on the back side of the rim -

 

As mentioned, Mopars had them as rare dealer-installed options. They were on '69 1/2 Lift-off hood cars (440-6 Pack cars). These cars came from the factory with black steel wheels, chrome lug nuts, and no trim rings or hub caps.
The discs mounted to the center of the spindle. The one for the Road Runners is a white disc with the cartoon Plymouth Road Runner on it, blurred feet and "speed trails" coming off him. The one for the Dodge Super Bee had a white Stetson cowboy had with "Dodge Boys" or "Good Guys" or something like that on it. The Dodge marketing campaign of the time featured guys in cowboy hats driving Mopars, with the slogan "Dodge Boys are the Good Guys" or something very similar. If you've ever been to a Mopar show and seen a white cowboy hat in the rear window of a Dodge, that's why.

On the Mopars, the front-only discs work pretty well, because the rear wheels are black and don't have any details like a hubcap would. And it really does look wierd watching a car drive around without the front wheels moving. The Road Runner works better, because it's drawn to make it look like the bird is in motion, so it looks cool on a moving car.

The Mopar discs are available as reproduction now, though they're still not seen often.

I never thought about it on a tail dragger with skirts, but damn that would look cool!

-Brad

 

If this wa already mentioned then I apoligize I didn't read every post. Posie put some on the Extremeliner. THe main cap spins with the tire but the center Deco sweeps stays still. Pretty cool if you see it rolling.