During the early sixties it was common for cars to mostly come with hub caps. Wheels, even on an “economy” car like the falcon typically got body color wheels. At some point the bean counters decided that this was a secondary process that was too costly. So the switch was made to all black wheels. With full wheel covers this was not noticeable anyway. So here is the question: Did you your cougar come with wheels painted body color, or black?
My then red 70 convertible had black wheels
October 13, 1969 built Competition Blue Eliminator with the “dog dish” hubcaps and trim rings, orignal spare rim is black as are the other 4, red paint daubs still on inside. No indication that hub cap, trim ring or lug nuts ever installed on spare.
I had a White 69 standard that had dog dish hub caps. The wheels on the car where White, the spare was Black. I can not say if that was factory though.
All of my early Cougars have had black wheels, and I don’t recall ever seeing an original '67-'73 Cougar with painted plain steel wheels.
Having said that, Rob May’s car sure has a nice look with body colored wheels and dog dish hubcaps.
There is some speculation that if the car was going to get full wheel covers that wheels would have been black. If it was to get dog dish with not trim ring it would have been painted to indicate to production workers that they needed to install dog dish caps. In 1967 it was possible to get the recess between the spokes of styled steel wheels painted in 6 body colors.
White 68 with full wheel covers. All 5 original wheels are black.
Of the over 1500 Cougar I have owned many have come with 5 painted steel wheels and I cannot remember seeing factory applied body colored paint on any of them.
Speculation only. Wheels were black 67 - 73. You had the option of having styled steel wheels between the spokes area painted body color in 1967 only, but there was no such option for the working class wheels.
My 1967 rims are black.
Steven
I recently had a Lime Frost 68 XR-7 car that came with full wheel covers that included the simulated knock off’s. The wheels were all painted Lime Frost, including the spare. I’m sure it was original and unmolested. Bill, you have the dash pad from this car and Gavin has the door panels. It was an early built Dearborn car.
Seen this a couple of times with Mustangs and other Ford product. Do you have a Marti report for the car? If so I would expect that you’ll find that it was built with the dog dish hubcaps and body painted wheels and at the dealer either the new owner wanted the fancy hubcaps or the salesman upsold them during the sale
In this way even the sale paperwork will show the fancy not the dog dish hubcaps
Here’s the old girl now.
Thanks Royce…
http://www.ebay.com/itm/152205641236?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
They’re everywhere!
Maybe a dealer thing. Maybe a Dearborn thing.
Don’t think it was a Dearborn thing but would not doubt that some dealers ordered allot of their cars with the cheap hubcaps in hopes of up selling to more expensive and marked up hubcaps to a new buyer. We’ve seen this with radios (Mustangs ordered as radio delete0 at some dealers.