I've restored a few sets of wheel covers lately. Usually I try to stay away from them as they're all a pain, but I do enjoy the challenges that they present. Most of the covers I redo for customers are ones that aren't being reproduced, so a lot of times there's no other options for a restorer, than to have the original covers restored. One of the 'cool factors' of getting up close and personal with a Studebaker part, is that sometimes it can show you things that you'd never otherwise notice.
I liked the smooth '56 wheelcovers on my '57 wagon so much that I restored and sold the spoked '57 covers. A Forum member bought them for his '56 Golden Hawk. (Ironic huh?) All four of them had this scratched into the back side. All four are identical and I've never seen this before. The wagon is an early car with body number 16. I can only surmise that since it's such an early car, that these are very early '57 spoked wheelcovers.
The hammer marks aren't factory.
Another interesting note is that a lot of the full wheel covers have the manufacturer's name stamped into one of the mounting tabs. All of the ones I've seen were made by Lyon. I wonder if they made all of the other stainless trim for Studes?
A '58 Packard wheel cover.
1950 was the first year that Studebaker used a full one piece wheel cover. The 50-52 full wheel covers have 8 evenly spaced mounting tabs, whereas the 53-66 ones have 12 tabs, in 4 groups of 3, instead of all of them being evenly spaced.
Here's a '50 Commander wheel cover. Every other tab has something stamped into it.
I have a non-production, experimental '50 Commander wheel cover that has the same stampings on the tabs as the production version.
I've looked at several dog dish caps (from a '32 Rockne cap to a '62 Champ 3/4 ton cap, and several in between), and none of them that I have here have any sign of who produced it.
I also recently restored a set of '55 Speedster wire basket covers and hubcaps, and neither the basket or the center cap had any sign of who made them.
Hopefully someone will find this pile of useless information as entertaining as I.
I liked the smooth '56 wheelcovers on my '57 wagon so much that I restored and sold the spoked '57 covers. A Forum member bought them for his '56 Golden Hawk. (Ironic huh?) All four of them had this scratched into the back side. All four are identical and I've never seen this before. The wagon is an early car with body number 16. I can only surmise that since it's such an early car, that these are very early '57 spoked wheelcovers.
The hammer marks aren't factory.
Another interesting note is that a lot of the full wheel covers have the manufacturer's name stamped into one of the mounting tabs. All of the ones I've seen were made by Lyon. I wonder if they made all of the other stainless trim for Studes?
A '58 Packard wheel cover.
1950 was the first year that Studebaker used a full one piece wheel cover. The 50-52 full wheel covers have 8 evenly spaced mounting tabs, whereas the 53-66 ones have 12 tabs, in 4 groups of 3, instead of all of them being evenly spaced.
Here's a '50 Commander wheel cover. Every other tab has something stamped into it.
I have a non-production, experimental '50 Commander wheel cover that has the same stampings on the tabs as the production version.
I've looked at several dog dish caps (from a '32 Rockne cap to a '62 Champ 3/4 ton cap, and several in between), and none of them that I have here have any sign of who produced it.
I also recently restored a set of '55 Speedster wire basket covers and hubcaps, and neither the basket or the center cap had any sign of who made them.
Hopefully someone will find this pile of useless information as entertaining as I.
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