Yep, that's how the car looked until someone at the dealership added the derby tops to the poverty caps before delivery to try to make them look like the rallys the owner ordered and was expecting when he got there to pick up his new car.

Maybe someone will come up with documentation at some point stating to substitute the XT with trim ring and COPO type cap until 14x7 YJ Rally's are produced.

So, you’re thinking the error at the factory was that the correct argent wheels for rally’s were installed, but they mistakenly included poverty caps, rather than derbys and trim rings? Wonder why the dealer didn’t order the correct derby’s and trim rings?
And if the other speculation is correct that the car arrives at the dealer with the correct rally’s, and a salesman ‘borrowed” them for another car, why weren’t replacements ordered?

A derby will not attach to a XT wheel. These are not Rally Wheels.

No, I believe the factory didn't yet have 14x7 rally wheels available when this car was produced, so they substituted the standard 14x7 steel wheels with trim rings. When trim rings were ordered on standard steel wheels, the wheels were painted silver at the factory. (as these are) The factory shipped it with the silver wheels/trim rings with standard dog dish caps, and the dealer got the brainstorm to add the derby tops to the hubcaps to try to make the wheels look like the rally wheels the customer ordered but did not get. i don't believe any wheels were swapped from anything, the wheels it has are what it was built with, and derby tops were screwed to the base hubcaps at the dealership prior to delivery.

Trim rings would not change the color of the wheel. They would still be body-colored.

That is correct if it left factory with wheels configured with P06/trim rings. These wheels are painted argent silver like a rally wheel. The fact remains after discussing this there are two opinions:

One opinion is it couldn't have left the factory with XT wheels painted argent silver with trim rings as a substitution due to YJ rallys unavailable that early. 20 years have passed and YJ rallys dated for the build date of this car have not been found.

or

XT wheel substitution was made at the factory due to availability, and the wheels were configured to somewhat replicate a rally.

To me(opinion) the bottom line is these are the wheels that it came from the factory. They were painted argent silver with trim rings.

All of us would love to solve this anomaly.

Time to hitch a ride with Marty mcfly

Or simply ask one of the "Doc Browns" who were there and managed the factory.:biggthumpup:

i am going to assume that camaro and firebird kinda followed the same build, so i have owned numerous 69 trans ams over the years and a few (3 or 4) still had the original plain steel wheels with their dog dish hubcaps on them. everyone of them also had trim rings on them. a couple of them i bought from the original owners and i asked about the trim rings and they said they were on them when they bought the car off the dealer lot. so my question is did the dealers throw the rings on them to make them look better or did they actually come from the factory with them????