Early 1953 spinner wheelcovers?

[Richard M.]

Last night I was perusing through 50's and 60's "Completed Listings" and came across this '54(item# 280398878336). Looking at the photos it appeared to be a nice project. Then I came to the photo of the 4 wheelcovers included with the package. Hmmmm, what do you think? Could these be the early protoypes?



Link to listing(note this listing will go away in about 90 days....ebay policy)

http://tinyurl.com/yaaq4b2

I downloaded this photo and a few others for the archives here.
Car in Las Vegas. 44 bids, allegedly sold for $18,000.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: Early 1953 spinner wheelcovers?

Hmmm, no 53 guys out there?

[Russ U.]

Re: Early 1953 spinner wheelcovers?

OK. I'll put in my two cents.

They indeed look like 53 hubcaps at first glance. But I suspect the 3 of the 4 are not hubcaps made in 1953.

GM reproduced the 53-55 hubcaps in the 1970s. Based on the motoring laws at the time, however, GM could not put the spinners on the caps. Thus, GM sold the caps sans spinners, and without indents for the spinners.

Reproduction spinners were readily available, however. So 53 to 55 owners purchased the GM remakes and added the spinners. Since the caps did not have indents, you could add the spinners in any fashion you wished - either perpendicular or horizontal to the bowtie.

In mid-1954 GM shifted the location of the air stem hole by 10 degrees to the left. Before the shift, the air hole was at the bottom, and over one of the tabs. The shift put the air hole between tabs.

Looking at the 4 caps in the pic, to my eye 3 of the air holes are shifted away from the bottom. I suspect these three are 1970s GM remakes. The bottom left cap shows an air hole at the very bottom. This could very well be a real deal early 53 hubcap. My guess is that the owner of the car picked up this cap somewhere, purchased some 1970s GM remakes, and made the remakes look like the real deal 53 hubcap he had on hand.

Russ
53 #276

[Richard M.]

Re: Early 1953 spinner wheelcovers?

Russ,

Good eye! Thanks for the explanation. I also read that info in Noland's book but I didn't notice the differences in the lower left cover vs the other three.

Rich