The Great Wire Wheel Cover Epoch spanned roughly five decades, though not all wire wheel covers are identical. Differences in spoke patterns, center caps, trim rings and other features make for subtle changes that add up to a great variety of designs.
Can you figure out what car this wheel cover belongs to?
Corvair wire wire wheel !
I don’t think so; at least on the early Corvair wire wheel covers, the wires didn’t pierce the stainless steel outer ring.
Buick Riviera… early-mid ’80s?
I used to scrub my dad’s wheel covers and it’s the first thing I thought of. ‘79-85
I think you have it.
1979 Cadillac Eldorado.
+1
(GM E-body: Eldorado, Toronado, Riviera)
I know it’s a Chrysler and since the next article is on a lebaron convertible with wire wheel covers I’m going to guess a 86 Chrysler lebaron?
The first image a quick Google search turned up was a Plymouth Caravelle wheel that looked pretty close. You may be onto something with the Chrysler angle.
Huffy!
Cadillac, mid-late 70’s? My mother’s ’77 Coupe de Ville had these silly things.
Having owned a couple Fords with wire wheel covers I know that that cover ain’t a Ford :D, I’m going with ’79-’85 Eldorado.
Looks exactly the same bent spokes that were on my 1967 Cadillac Convertible
80’s GM. I’ll venture Cadillac RWD B-body, like a Brougham, DeVille or Fleetwood.
I have 2 sets of these in my collection and they’re distinctly more fancy than equivalent spoke wheel covers sold on cheaper B-bodies like the Caprice Brougham
As many have suggested —
Some kinda GM pseudo-luxo from the 70’s -80’s, with a thick, bulky hub.
NO COMPARISON with the carefully-wrought, genuine Brit-wires on MG’s & Austin-Healey’s.
Looks a lot like the ones on my grandfathers 1990 Buick Regal
I’m not near my garage right now, but this looks a lot like my ’91 Brougham.
The ones stolen of my mother’s Mary Kay Cadillac back in the day!
Mary Kay Cadillac!!! – Sounds like great COAL story!!!
I think I found them!!
+1
I have one of those came in the trunk of a Caddy I bought a long time ago. The car is gone but the wheel cover is somewhere with the rest of my junk.
I think it’s a Chrysler wheel, I’ll say 88 New Yorker. Shorter spokes than the GM wheels I had on my Buick Century
It looks like the point of a wheel retaining “hex nut” is visible. With that plus the rectangular “window” below the spokes I’m going to bet on Chrysler. That’s pretty vague so I’ll go Fifth Avenue just to be a bit more specific.
Anyone who can is welcome to run further with it.
Cadillac all the way. I can even feel the weight and hear the scraping sound when they are removed.
I’m going to go in a different direction, and say it looks a lot like the ones on the Cutlass Ciera.
Looks like a mid-late 70’s Buick, the inner wire pattern is different from Chrysler, both had the six sided sections, but a Chrysler should show the space between wheel cover and cap,, as opposed to cast in. In detailing I used to have to take wire covers apart to clean properly before wire wheel cleaning solutions came about. I prefer the earlier 60’s style Buick, as on my Electra, which was mistaken for real when near new and the spinner destroyed (and replaced) by the tire shop.
Some good guesses here, but we haven’t hit the jackpot yet!
The warmest guess so far has been that of a Buick Riviera — it’s an awfully similar wheel cover, but our Clue car isn’t a Riviera. Or even a Buick…
I was sure of it. You’re so evil… 🙂
If Buick is warmer than Chrysler, I’m still leaning on the “hex nut” and the “window” to call it Pontiac.
I know, that’s rather general, maybe another sleuth can pick up some fiber from that.
I’m still going with Chrysler. So if Buick Riviera is a warm guess then maybe Chrysler Cordoba?
Okay, if a Riviera is close, then I’m going with the following as my second guess:
1986 – 1991 Cadillac Eldorado
Olds toronado?
Or is it an Olds 98?
First gen Seville then perhaps?
Edit: I retract that, the hub looks different. Going to throw out the vote for a bustleback Seville.
Due to my teenage closeup work with 80s GM wire wheels though I’m going to say this looks totally GM to me. The Chrysler covers of the era didn’t look as substantial.
Barry Koch called Riviera so apparently that’s not it?
But look at the details…
Valve stem through “tin can” seal.
Spoke nut design.
Spoke dimples at hub.
Rectangular holes in back plate.
Profile of outer ring.
It’s got to be something closely related.
Boy, I miss that car. Those R logos as a kid were equivalent these days of a three pointed star or a blue and white roundel.
I grew up towards the end of the Great Brougham Epoch and so cars were supposed to have vinyl tops and wire wheel covers. But that era Riviera somehow did it right- tastefully, I guess as much as vinyl and wire could convey good taste. Even the light-up R logo looked so good on the roof.
I’d like to think that maybe if you took 40-year-old me now back then I’d still appreciate the Riv. But I’d probably just go for a 3 series.
CJC – Hood ornaments were tough to keep on ’em.
And the bottom of the A-pillars had a factory installed sponge to retain water and promote quick rot.
And the covers side-by-side:
Heh, when my dad’s got stolen and we got it back he may have told the insurance company it must have been part of the the theft. Got a nice new gold R back on it in 94 or so.
Most of the rot when I got rid of it was over the rear wheel well.
Real wire wheels look and work great the hubcap variety have a el cheapo K mart look, I have no idea what its from
It’s hard to stump the CCommentariat, but this section of a wire wheel cover may have done that.
The car it belongs to is a 1986 AMC Eagle – wire wheel covers were standard on the Limited model.
While no one guessed an AMC product here, honorable mention goes to Barry Koch, CJC and JimDandy, who guessed the 1979-85 Buick Riviera, and tried very hard to figure out what else it could be. Now, you may ask: Why would a Riviera be close guess to an AMC Eagle?
Good question, but as far as I can tell, AMC used Riviera wire wheel covers, just replacing the Riviera “R” center cap with the AMC logo. Incidentally, JimDnady noticed the “hex nut,” visible in the bottom-left of the Clue picture – that feature distinguishes the Riviera’s wire wheel from the Toronado’s, which appears otherwise identical.
Good job everyone – though admittedly, this was somewhat of a trick question!
Here is a comparison of the Eagle and Riviera wheel covers – they look nearly identical to me. I learned about this similarity when researching today’s CC on the Eagle. In reading an Eagle-related website, I came across a story of an Eagle owner who contacted one of the big hubcap warehouses to see if they had an Eagle wire wheel cover in stock. They told him it was the same as the Riviera’s, minus the center cap. I never would have guessed.
Makes sense. Nash/Hudson/Rambler/AMC never made their own wire covers that I know of. Those that were on my ’65 Ambassador convertible were sourced from GM’s Pontiac Division, with the Pontiac logo hub replaced with the Rambler’s stylized “R” (same concept as the famous Nash “N”). It surprised me how easy it was to find replacements, if one had the sense to remove the hard-to-find hub and transfer it to the “new” Pontiac cover. Dunno how AMC made those hubs, but they were indestructible. I don’t think they were cloisonné but they sure looked enameled.
GM.
AMC Eagle
That was awesome Eric 703! I was convinced that it was Chrysler. An amc never would have entered my mind in a million years!
Nice job Eric! Would have never ever ever thought AMC.
Strange about the hubcaps being ! I have had the opinion that the RWD Chrysler Fifth Avenue from the 80’s used the same taillights as the 75-76 Buick LeSabre. I’ve never tried to exactly match them up, but they look awfully similar. GM supplying parts to other corporations is probably not completely unprecedented, I would guess it’s more common for unseen mechanical parts.
Late ’70’s Chrysler LeBaron
Wife had a ’91 Riviera with similar covers – the worst set up ever! Noise, easily bent and broken and different attachment for the fronts and rears. Otherwise, mostly one of the best all-around cars for me. Felt like a VIP driving it and most parts under the hood were regular Buick. Wish I could find another one in decent shape. I’d find some other wheel covers though. My ’87 LeSabre had 14″ wire covers too – not quite so bad. Nice when they are new. Hit the curb and they are toast.
In the mid ’70s my Dad had a white ’67 Chevy Malibu Concourse wagon – the fancy version with the power tailgate window, roof-rack, fake-wood on the sides and full-size 14″ hubcaps.
I remember that he’d lost one or two of the originals and could never find a matching one in the junkyard. It seemed like GM must’ve made 5000 slightly different variations of those same “14 hubcaps and we could never find one that was an exact match. And Dad wouldn’t pay for a full set.
So then, in a thrift-store he found a beautiful set of “14 Chevy wire hubcaps for about $25 – the kind with the wings on the center caps. No idea what they originally came off of – but boy did those look sharp!
We drove to Philly that weekend to visit my grandmother. The morning we came out of her apartment to leave for home, those hubcaps were GONE!!!
Happy Motoring, Mark