What is the origin of red wheels? When did painting your wheels red become "the thing"? and why? I admit it I had red steel wheels on my 46 for a while but now they're painted a different color to match different accents on my truck. Someone recently posted a black primer pickup with these great green colored wheels. Wheels in all different colors look awesome but red seems to be the most popular. Why red?
I think there was a post on this before. I believe it was said that a lot of stock cars came with the wheels painted red.
I remember seeing them in the early '50's. They looked good against the white wall tires. Even if you had hub caps.
I was thinking about it one day but couldn't think of a reason...Flat black makes sense...its like primer or is primer. red wheels i never got. They look cool but i guess after 50 years a look can get played out. i wonder what other theories are out there as to why red wheels are standard issue "rat rod"
lots of fifities cars came with red wheels,www, and hubcaps. Removed or lost hubcaps exposed the red rims. I saw some early color pics of fifties customs that showed An under construction car sporting primer and red wheels.
When I bought my 47 Chevy Aerosedan 2 dr in early 55, 1st thing I did was to trade the 16 in wheels for 15 in, paint them bright red and mount Firestone wide whites and 55 Dodge "Royal Lancer" 4 bar hub caps on them and put the torch to the front and rear springs to drop it about 2 inches. Of course that was back "in the day"
i had the same question... my truck had grabber green rims but i painted them black... i think it looks better with them black.
- Nope. You are mistaken. Stickers make you faster. Just ask that dude in the Civic. You gain at least 10HP per sticker, big *** custom ones will net you 15!
Red wheels originated from the pages of OSR they still look good when covered with the hubcap just exposing the outer ring-
The earliest memory I have of painting wheels red is 1955. Older kid across the street bought his first car, a green '51 Plymouth, and the first thing he did was pull the caps, and paint the wheels red. Didn't think to ask him why.....but it looked cool to me, since I had seen other cars like it and they were "hot cars". I have no idea when or why it started, though. Someone really old will have to answer that. Mutt
Not necessaraly. Here is a breakdown by brand followed by the average savings in ET: Moon ~ 1.04 sec. Clay Smith Cams ~ 0.84 sec. Hurst ~ 0.75 sec. Coop Devil Girl ~ 0.5 ****** Headers ~ 0.15 Edelbrock ~ 0.09 Holley ~ 0.14 STP ~ 0.23 Mallory ~ -0.13 MSD ~ -0.14 No Fear ~ -1.23 Calvin ******* ~ -1.21 Greatful Dead ~ -5.54 Dale Earnhardt/NASCAR ~ not recommended for use, causes toothlessness One of the best kept secrets of Woodward street racers is to go to the Murray's Auto and get the sticker pack that has one sheet with a bunch of different brands on it. Apply to gl*** for best results.
The first red wheels probably came from Ford. Who ever owned the red Ford had it painted black or painted it black and didn't paint the wheels. Everyone else thought it was custom and that started the trend. Or maybe some kid pulled the wires off his old Ford and put steelies on it, he had no cash so he bought the steelies from the junk yard with tires on them. He hadn't painted the wheels yet because cruisin' was more important to him at the time. Then everyone... Just conjecture mind you. That's just one of those questions that have no real answer but i'm sure that someone out there would take credit for the trend if they were still alive.
as you know in the early days you couldn't just go buy hot rod parts. you had to either modify things yourself or get them from a different make of car. lasalle got the reputation early on that they had the strongest tranmissions and rear ends. thats where the tall shifter trend came from also. lasalles had tall shifters. early lasalles had red wire wheels on the sportier models. coupes/roadsters. so, you just bolt on the lasalle wheels on the rear and paint your front ford wires red to match. somewhere down the road the origins of the red wheel had been forgotten and it turned into a style thing. it was just thing to do. if you had red wheels and a tall shifter you supposedly had the "good stuff" under your car and you weren't to be messed with. this is my own hypothosis derived from studying countless old magazines and talking to may "original" hot rodders from the day.
Jeezuz...there's really a post on the origins of red wheels? Um, how 'bout the color red is always sporty looking, and it's a great accent? There's the remains of an old Post Master's horse drawn buggy in a museum here in town. Had red and blue pinstripes. Old steam engines had pin stripes. Old horse (and human!) drawn fire engines had pinstripes. Old steam tractors had pinstripes. Hell, my uncle has an old wooden potatoe harvester in his barn that was red with black pinstripes. I've seen old industrial equipment and large machines with pinstriped hand wheels (like to close a valve). You've probably seen those kinds of handwheels too--they always have curved spokes and look kinda graceful. Back when craftsmanship meant utility had to look good, too. Paint a wheel red and slap a hubcap on it, and there's now a red accent around the outter edge of the wheel between the cap and the tire. Didn't early Fords come with hubcaps with red paint on the inserts or beads? Damn, red just looks good, and it's great accent color. Do you guys sit around and think of stupid **** like this?! "What's the original of red painted wheels" may very well be the dumbest topic I've ever read here. Who the hell sits around and thinks "why does everyone do something that looks good?" As for a look getting played out after 50 years? Yeah, wide whites, the small block Chevy, the '55 Chevy and Torque Thrusts are all totally played out. To say nothing of the Model A and the Flat Head. Skulls...spider webs...spider caps...lakes pipes...cut outs... -Brad
Simple answer to the 'red wheel origin'. Because just about everyone likes the color red. Half of the hot rods and musclecars you see are painted red. People paint cars 'resale red' to turn them for a quick sale. Red is the favorite color of most of the human race as far as I can tell. Painting something is the cheapest way to make something look different and red is the color of choice.
It symbolizes the Blood Of The People being crushed beneath the wheels of Capitalism! Dang...don't they teach that stuff in school any more???
For a person who thinks this is the "dumbest topic", youre the only one with the longest reply, haha. And you think flatheads are played out? ...Dude... Seems kinda funny.
..........all I know is that when we got the Studebaker, the first thing I did was paint the rims school bus yellow and mount up a new set of Goodyears. This brought on a raft of **** from the "old school" Kustom guys. They INSISTED that the rims needed to be painted red. "That's the way we did it........" **** 'em! I wanted them yellow.............of course, I was driving a Studebaker and not a Ford, Chevy or Merc...............
No dude, I DON'T think flatheads are played out. Or 322-inch Nailheads. 409s...Torque Thrusts...white wall cheater slicks... That was my point in part of the reply. And this is still a dumb topic. -Brad
I think it's just catchy. My highschool colors were red/black/white though, so I was around it as a kid. Why are there so many flat black cars with red and offwhite pinstriping? I just think for a lot of humans, the three colors go together well. I don't even buy into the societal influence either. I just think the way most of our brains process it, it just looks better than a lot of other combinations. That, and you can count on it not going out of style. Like a flat top hair cut and white undershirts.. You can put it on display at any time period in history and not a whole lot of people are going to tell you that it's out of style. Then again, why do ricers paint their cars cat**** orange with pink flames? As we get older, maybe our tastebuds, eardrums, and desire for vivid, crazy color schemes die along with everything else? I think black cars with off white wheels, or the cream colored ones look good too. Just some colors that compliment others nicely. There really aren't that many expensive hotrods that are black and red.. I have pretty bland taste, so a 50,000 dollar hotrod that's yellow and purple just turns me off.
Just remenber when using stickers to lower you et, you run the risk of bumper sticker syndrome,for each bumper sticker you have your bumper you lose 10pts on your I.Q. score. 15pts if you put bumper stickers on your trunk lid. Carlg
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