What wheels would be period correct for a late 50's early 60's rod. Steelies, Chrome Reverse, what else...
those are best bets... needs caps though, maybe chrome steelies with smoked centers... if you had lots of money you could run like 50s olds wires, or caddy sabre wheels (wanna buy a set?? LOL.. jk- they are worth too much and need to stay with my 57 biarritz)... i would run steelies and nice caps, 55 olds spinners, 57 lincoln (wanna buy a set, LLOL), caddy caps... something like taht.. where you from? you arent far from me, i wonder if we ever met?? i wanna know all the car guys near me!!!!!!!!!!!
I'd say that in that era the hot wheels were chrome reversed, bare or with baby moons or whaddycallit pointy things on hub and nuts. Gears shifted when fake mags appeared --maybe '61-62?? Before that, real mags were high-zoot racing parts, but then someone started making much cheaper copies out of aluminum or aluminum/steel construction, and they became the wheel to have overnight. Almost all of the early ones were basically like 5 spoke American mags in appearance.* By the time they were firmly entrenched, the musclecar era started and they became MANDATORY. No early ('64-66, at least) musclecar ever lasted longer than the trip home from the dealer on stock rollers--anyone who didn't switch to "mags" and the also new high performance tires with various color stripes (red, blue mostly) du jour was a LOSER. Stock steering wheel also had to go. Everyone had fits over this, because all of the early mags were made with lots of offset and didn't fit most rear wheel wells... *Cultural footnote: As soon as mags became popular, the hubcap folks released fake five spoke mag hubcaps--they all looked really strang because no offset was possible. These were widely popular for about a week--the owners drew so much flack over the cheap fakery that these things vanished almost overnight...I guess the owners slank away and took out another loan to cover real fake mags. These fake mag hubcaps looked EXACTLY like some high end real mags on Porsche 911's a few years back.
Believe it or not, I still have a set of those... And for the mags, I put on a set of 14" Keystone five spokes on my '64 Impala...and I still have those as well. The Keystones looked like Americans but had zero offset, looking a lot like modern wheels of today. My mags were composite construction, meaning the five spoke mag part is aluminum (or whatever) and they were mated to a steel inner wheel, very strong and resistant to failure, probably why I still have them 42 years later... R-
Us poor kids (from EASTERN Iowa) just had steel wheels, but by junk yard trolling we could usually find 7 inch wide wheels, usually on station wagons and/or old squad cars. The hot ticket was 6 inchers up front, 7 inchers out back, with dog dish hubcaps and either paint that matched the car, or complimented it. Didn't need whitewalls, blackwalls were cool, just so long as they were big enough on the back. Had a friend who's philosophy was "If they ain't rubbin' a little, they're not quite big enough. Some habits are hard to break, I still run that same kind of stuff today.
I think the baby blue '32 coupe with the Olds engine and '56 Starfire hubcaps that Brizio just built flat out NAILS the late fifties look. Nails right down. chili Listening to Moody Bluegr***. Neat stuff. Recommended, highly.
The Jalopy Journal
