Hot Rods Weird Ford Hubcap

At first glance this looked like a typical '46 Ford hubcap. It has all O's. Must be a cheap aftermarket replacement. Any ideas?

 

JC Whitney, 70's probably

 

It's how they got around copywrite on "ford"

 

Back in the early 50s, we began to see some auto accessories that were "Made In Japan".
Look closely for any markings. It's possible you have some rare Japanese Zeros on your hands there.

 

@BigMikeC Lots of repro hubcaps were made that closely matched the OEM caps but typically the name or logo was carefully altered to resemble the OEM at a glance, but not enough to infringe on trademark or copyright.

Ray

 

I have seen another hub cap that said FOOL.

 

A lot of these came out of Argentina back in the 50s and 60s. Mixed qualities, some were OK.
All I have seen had the script modified to avoid copyright issues. Gave away a Chev one last week - the cross bar on the H. the center bar on the E and the forward leg on the R were missing. Looked like Chevrolet at a glance, but when you looked closer you saw the difference.
Other hub caps said FOOD, DOOGE and CHRYYYER. Therev were others, but the brain is not kicking them out.
I have a set of 39 Ford caps, chrome, no stainless with a modified V8 symbol

 

Once upon a time, the factories were very particular about their trademarks being reproduced by the aftermarket. They would sue the crap out of a company using factory script or logos on equipment without getting a license to reproduce them. I once had a set of aftermarket Ford 6A-1130 hub caps that were perfectly lettered just like Ford, but read "BOOL" IN Ford style script and dark blue paint just like Henry did. But, since it appeared to exactly follow Ford shape, size, and even color, BOOL made it just enough different to keep Ford at bay.

 

As others have said, that kind of spelling was done to avoid litigation from the OEMs. The OEMs didn't license their copyrighted nomenclature until they finally figured out that the aftermarket was a goldmine that they didn't have to do anything to benefit from. I'm sure their proceeds from "authorized" uses of names, etc. hauls in a lot of $$$ for them in today's market.

 

i was collecting these goofy things for awhile.
never did find a "FOOL"
but a few I had were a 40 ford deluxe repro cap that said "deluxe deluxe" (rather than ford deluxe)
some 1940 chev caps that were changed from the chevrolet block letters to blue squares..
and a 46 ford cap that like this featured squares.

as others have mentioned some were ok, some were junk

 

Thanks for all the input!