It's not a hate of red wheels, it's more of a statement that "red wheels and flat black do not make a hot rod or custom" which is what some people think these days. My '57 came with red wheels from the factory and I ran them with the wide whites it had on it when I first got it. Red wheels are fine...
Seems like red wheels have been around a lot longer than I thought... My Dad used to paint the wheels red on EVERY car that we ever had when I was growing up in the 60's. I was about 8 years old at the time, but I still clearly remember my Mom giving him hell for popping the hubcaps off of, and painting, the steel wheels on our 65 Dodge Monaco within hours of bringing it home. (It was a used car, but still...) He put the caps back on when the paint dried, but you could still see the red bead! That's the main reason that I decided to go with the red rims on my 49 truck. I am running an older Dodge hubcap on the front but have the stock steelies painted red as sort of an homage to dear old Dad. And yeah, he loves it! Here's my amateur photoshop of my 49 with the hubcap (I have the "then white sidewall on a black rim" spare tire from another one of my cars on the front until I get the bias ply tires ordered)
Traditional hot rodder's dilemma. How to look cool and different while staying with tradition...emulating something that's been done a million times. But I wouldn't worry too much about our hot rods being near the same as other traditional rods. The people we wanna be different from are the m***es. I expressed some worry to my wife, that I might build my roadster the same as everybody else. She's pretty smart...she said, "How many other roadsters like yours will be runnin' around this area?" She's got a point. There will be just about none.
Don"t hate red wheels,just tired of seeing flat black cars with red wheels.I just hope the green wheel fad doesn"t catch on. The flat black has got so dang overdone on the cars that there is a guy here in Fla. advertising flat black paint jobs for $ 150 paint included.Every time I take wheels to swapmeet if they are black don"t get no takers at all. Clean them up,paint them red and they are gone.Red wheels look good on some hotrods but look stupid and cheesy on others.
I don't think we are all Red Wheel haters it is just like a lot of things. Red wheels does not make it traditional or it is not mandatory to make it a traditional ride. They have been as over done as small block chebbies or tuck'n'roll. They can all be part of a traditional ride but they do not make whatever it is a traditional ride. Not everything had red wheels and so it is not something that everything needs to have. If you liike red wheels and they go alright with the rest of your color scheme than by all means paint them red. If you don't like them or they don't go well with the rest of your color scheme then by all means don't. My new traditional thing is painting the back side of all wheels red no matter what the rest of the car looks like. I'll say I saw it in a book then if anyone wants their ride to be traditional they will have to do it that way.
my 53 came with a factory green two tone paint job and green wheels to match, and i have always been a fan of the wheels matching the body color. right now my car is flat black cause it's cheap and hides a lot of flaws untill i can get around to doing all the body work and repaint the car, and with that said i see a lot of colors that look good on flat black beside red, gold, blue and neon green.
My avatar Willys has red wheels because my wife drives it and wanted red wheels.Real trucks don't have wheelcovers.
Of course my man! In an ideal world if I had the cash I'd lose my 351 Winsor and replace it with a 327 Chevy in a heartbeat. And yes, along with my chromies, I have a set of candy red over flake wheels that I run sometimes with wheelcovers just for a change. Paul
Dude, think Mark Anthony built that ride. It looked better when he had it, Julius F'd it up. Mark had a flying eyeball on the front and a set of whitewall pie crust cheaters on it. Mark had a 4 horse in the front, whereas Julius detuned it down to 2. Waay cooler when Mark had it.
X2... how many clapped-out, 19** mordoors have you seen with red wheels, WWW, primer and a flying eyeball decal? Now they are hot rods, right? Gary PS Red wheels are just so cliche on the wrong car, eh? But you could easily say the same thing about a lot of stuff we do - teardrop tail lights (my god, do something else!), skinny tires, peeps, bomber seats, XL shift levers, etc., etc..
I'm kinda new here, but to me, red wheels are "hot rod", not rat rod. I don't care for rat rods, don't understand the whole "take some good car parts, cut 'em up, smash 'em down into a cartoonish thing you can't drive" deal. I hope to have red wheels on my '53 F100 someday with some type of traditional wheelcover, or maybe no cover at all. What other colors work? Black. yellow, blue?
The Jalopy Journal
