Hub caps — From the thrilling days of yesteryear

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DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour    


It’s amazing what passes for pathetic when it comes to vehicles. Among examples are convertibles with the top down but the windows up; a BMW or Mercedes with whitewall tires; vehicles with aftermarket vinyl roofs; and hub caps that cover steel wheels.

Let’s concentrate on the last example, shall we?

Most of my readers are old enough to remember how diverse and attention-grabbing hub caps used to be. This was during all those decades prior to the broad availability of alloy and magnesium stylistic wheels.

Back “in the days” those kinds of wheels weren’t even available on drag-racing vehicles. The cool thing then was to drive around with your hub caps off. Hub caps do — and did have a purpose. Ostensibly they were used to protect lug nuts from getting dirt and other elements on them that at some point might make it either impossible to loosen in the event of a tire change…or rust to the point the points would break off.

Most of the hubcaps from those by-gone days were solid chrome and generally bore the emblem of the manufacturer. Tons of chrome polish were sold to keep them shiny. Starting in the '50s, certain wheel covers became more desirable.

In 1953, Oldsmobile designed a hubcap that would become a trend in wheel covers for a decade or so — the three-bladed spinner (or flipper as we used to call it in Indiana). Watching these hubcaps as a vehicle increased speed was mesmerizing and various incarnations of this hubcap were purchased by the millions. There were three-, and four-bladed varieties and few hot rods and other customized cars didn’t’ have a set of them.

Soon other designs made their entrance. One of the most coveted sets of wheel covers were 1957 Plymouth “cone-shaped” caps. They were really unique and with their chrome design and their black inner rim base really set a vehicle off. I even had a set of them on my 1955 Ford Victoria.

Other popular hub cap designs were “Moons,” basically a stainless steel dish, “Baby Moons,” which were just chrome dishes big enough to cover the lug nuts and the beginnings of mag wheels but hub caps made to look like them. The bottom line, however, is there was still a steel wheel behind the façade.

As the years progressed tires and wheels changed. The once-common whitewall or even red-walled “Tiger Paws” gave way to the once-shunned black walls. However, unlike wearing black socks with Bermuda shorts, they didn’t look all that goofy and quickly gained acceptance. White wall tires became the oddity.

However, wheels were where the dramatic changes came, and many of the better-looking ones came from the factory. Each manufacturer seemed to have several alloy wheel offerings – some in chrome. At this same time the aftermarket offered hundreds, if not thousands of different wheels — some pretty cool….some bordered on the absurd.

Meantime, as alloy wheels became more common and better to look at, base vehicles that had steel wheels became subjected to plastic wheel covers. Very few looked good…most looked like what they were…failed attempts to try not to look cheap. Few things look bleaker than a newer, base vehicle with a bare wheel where a hubcap should go. They resemble a washed-up, aged movie star who’s a half-ton short of her customary makeup necessities.

Think of steel wheels as the Norma Desmond character from Sunset Boulevard. And the future for steel wheels? Here’s a tip from a former senior analyst at Lehman Brothers…”Save your money and invest all of it in Enron stock. You’ll have a better portfolio.”