C-2 Knock-Off Wheels

[Hector G.]

Just some thoughts on a recent sale of Knock-Offs on E-Bay. The seller represented that the wheels were original. He posted several photos of the wheels. Missing from all four wheels was the KH stamp and "D-49985" below it. They did appear to be dated, but even that appeared somewhat odd. Many individuals bid on the items and I believe they eventually sold for over $3 K. It has always been my understanding, based on viewing photos, discussions with others, and having actually viewed original KO's, that they always have the KH and "D-49985" stamped on them. Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter. In addition, I've been told that dates might not always be found on the originals. Is this true?

Hector

[Jack H.]

Re: C-2 Knock-Off Wheels

Early versions of the wheel were date coded via rubber stamp (64-??) while later wheels were physically embossed with the date code. The exact changeover is a bit blurry, but it's accepted to have happened in the '65 model year.

What's 'blurry' about the change over lies in Noland Adam's description of the P48 option in 1965:

"The first 1965 Corvette knock-off wheel was part number 3852552, the same as 1964. The wheel changed to part number 3868768 on AIM date 2-22-65...."

The 1964 version of the KO did not have center spoke accent paint while it's generally accepted that the 1965 version of the KO did have accent paint. If the '65 model year started with EXACTLY the same wheel as used in '64, then either the early '65 equipped cars lacked accent paint OR designers issued engineering change(s) to the existing drawing to add the accent paint.

If the former, then our Judging Guide books are wrong because we call out all '65 KO's to be accent painted. If the later, then there was probably a service SNAFU that precipitated the PN revision in mid Feb of '65... There would have been two versions of the KO wheel with the SAME physical PN on them in service inventory: one without center spoke accent paint, the other with accent paint. No matter how you cut it, some folks buying a service replacement wheel for their cars would have been angered by the delivered part not matching the existing cosmetics of what was on their car!

There's also a third possibility here... There was sufficient on-hand inventory of KO wheels from the '64 MY build left over that Chevy simply reworked them to add the accent paint in-house for the '65 MY run and didn't need to re-order from Kelsey Hayes until February at which time the new PN was released to have them painted by Kelsey directly.

To really unravel this tiny mystery of Corvettedom, we'd need someone with access to GM drawings to pull the early, 3852552, drawing and review its revision history. Noland told me he'd look into this when I drew his attention here at an NCRS Chapter Meet in London, England back in 2000, but I'm not holding my breath for an answer....