Neat little detail for the purists out here, my 56 Pathfinder Deluxe is mostly unrestored and I got it from the second owner, one family owned since 56. They are telling me the wheels were never repainted, and I can easily tell that the spare at least is untouched original with the original tire on it.
What I thought was peculiar was that a white line is painted around the wheel complementing the dog dish hub cap. I wasnt sure if this was indeed factory original or not.. well, lo and behold, this other 56 with low mileage and original paint comes up on Kijiji and it has the exact same white lines on the wheels.. seems like this is indeed a factory detail after all!
Very cool indeed, I have a photo of my original steel wheels from our 1950 Pontiac. Yours are in mint condition , ours not so
Unfortunately when we checked them closely we had to scrap them due to cracks in the wheel face originating from the rivets leading to the center of the wheel , that put an end to original steel wheels. Presently the only original steel wheel on / in our car is the spare tire. It appears like it had two white pin strips around the wheel
Probably a trim feature from back when there were no full wheels covers.
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
Pathfinder and Pathfinder Deluxe came with a pinstripe on the wheel because the standard hubcap was a dog dish. The Laurentian did not have a pin stripe because they came with a full wheel cover . I had the wheels on my 55 pathfinder station wagon sandblasted expoxy primed and painted Navaho Tan with single stage urethane. I brought them to a local sign painter who pin striped a 1/4 " off white stripe on the original location. He did it free hand using One Shot sign paint. They turned out looking like they came from the factory as the original pin stripe is not a perfect line.
Did some quick online "research" by looking at brochures, and here are a few of my observations:
1) Most brochures from that era have illustrations of the car, so depending on the level of detail in the brochures, they may or may not show the pinstripe.
2) Typically higher line cars were promoting full wheel covers or trim rings, so those brochures did not tend to include wheels that would show pinstripes.
3) In general, most manufacturers pinstriped wheels in the '30s and '40s, but the practice appeared to be mostly gone by the 1950s (roughly). I've seen cars from the twenties and possibly earlier with pinstriped wheels as well.
4) Brochures for Canadian Pontiacs were not very plentiful for 40s-50s era, and American Pontiac brochures tended to show full wheel covers.
5) I could, however find evidence of pinstriped wheels on the Chevrolet brochures - mostly in the 'engineering features' brochure - definitely up to 1955, and less obviously into 1956 and maybe 1957, but on '56 and '57 it wasn't clear if it was a pinstripe, or glare/shadows on the wheel.
My conclusion, based on very limited information with a lot of assumptions on my part:
- That it was a styling feature carried over from earlier days, probably to break up the expanse of the stamped steel disk type wheels as they switched from spoked wheels in the twenties. With a large flat expanse between the small hub cap and the outer rim, a pinstripe would make the wheel more visually interesting.
- As full wheel covers became more popular and available, companies dropped the pinstriping practice on the cheaper cars with small hubcaps.
- Most manufacturers stopped by the late '40s/early '50s, but it appears that GM carried on the practice until 1956 or 1957. After that I couldn't find any evidence of it.
- That while it's not clear whether American Pontiacs carried this feature so late, it would seem logical that Canadian Pontiacs would, since they were based on Chevrolets anyhow.
Curiously, Chevrolet went from wood spoke to steel disk wheels in the mid twenties, and then switched to wire spokes from 1931 to 35-36, when stamped steel wheels were phased in.
1938 Chevrolet:
1947 Chevrolet:
1950 Chevrolet:
1953 Chevrolet:
1955 Chevrolet - note the text about hubcaps gives specifics about the stripe:
By 1956, the stripe is still there, but there is no info about it:
In the 1957 engineering features brochure, it's not obvious that the stripe is there, but looks like it may be in the illustration of the car:
No evidence of the stripe in 1958:
So, that's what I found on the subject. It was fun to look through the old info to find some minutia that I wasn't previously aware of.
I imagine there are folks here who can add some more info to this. My observations were just from brochures online, which aren't always accurate as things on the line often changed after the brochure illustrations were done. Real world observations always add a lot to documentation in any form of research.
Very, very informative and well-documented post, MC, thanks a lot!
I believe you might be correct and 57 was the last year for pinstriped wheels. I am glad I posted about this, these are the little bits of info that I love about these cars and about resources like this forum!
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1959 Pontiac Parisienne 2 door hardtop Sport Coupe
1956 Pontiac Star Chief Custom Catalina 4 door hardtop
Have seen a device, usually demonstrated at the bigger flea markets such as Carlisle and Hershey, that performs this task. A roller device applies the paint as the wheel is rotated on a platform. Not overly complicated but effective.
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.