Wheels . . . . ?

[hvychev]

Thats weird whitetop. I see more Cragers in the Chi-town area than TT's. My father says that people in the inner city were running TT's more in the 60's (including himself) and the Cragers were the majority post 1970.

[JoeG]

Frank-----In Brooklyn ,Chrome/reversed wheels first--- then early 60's cragars S/S ruled --they were the rim to have--I didn't get turned on to TORQUE/THRUST's until I started getting into Motion '67 --then in the early 70's Ansen Sprints took over, until they had the legal problem of copying the Ansen Sprint design from another rim company and went under.Just some Booklyn info.

[hvychev]

Joe after reading your post I drilled the old man for some more wheel info. He said what you said before I even mentioned it about the chrome reverse. I even posted some vintage pics of his 55 Chevy hot rod a while back sporting chrome reverse and then some more pics with Keystone Kustomflite (TT style) mags on it. He also told me for the fella's that lacked a fat pocket in the 60's (him included) they used to get a set on steel wheels & paint them gloss black and get a set of bright chrome lug nuts for them to stand out. Some would add baby moons which he said would pop off if you hit a pot hole in Chicago! He also told me that he used to cut a piece of card board and paint half of the the wheel white so you got a psycadelic look when the wheel was rolling! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Here is a vintage pic of the 55 Chevy from Oct. 1968 with the Chrome reverse.

[Belair62]

You rarely see REAL TT wheels...just the re-pops.

[hvychev]

Here is a pic of the 55 Chevy taken in July 1969 with the Keystones.

[JoeG]

Your Dad's right about the baby moons and the chrome lug nuts on black painted rims------really reaching back now

Usually --I would see that wht/blk painted rim on the rear at least where we roamed.---- Had to pull that baby/moon stuff out of the cob-webs [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]-----THANKS FOR PIC [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Your Dad's also right about those baby/moons popping off on impact with a pothole---Man I can hear that baby/moon rolling down the street now [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[PxTx]

I'm not 100% sure of this, but the Cragar SS wheels we all love came out about 1965.

I am working on bringing my 65 Chevelle back to it's high school days when I was runing the black rim/ chrome lug look. Chrome dust caps up front really set the look off. Probably gonna run a set of M&H's out back.

Paul T

[MosportGreen66]

interesting. Did Keystone make a similar wheel to the TT? The Hot Rod 55 looks as if it has TT on it.

[Zedder]

Mark has a good handle on the sizing we used back in the mid 70's. We always ran 15x6 on the front and 15 x 8 on the rear with short 70 or 78 series on the front and tall 60's on the rear. We'd put HD springs in the front to raise it up a bit and air shocks in the rear. I wouldn't do that on a car today, so my next car will get 15 x 7 Cragar SS's all the way around and I'll have blackwall radials. I'll also have a set of correct factory wheels and repop tires for those times that I want the bone stock look. Check out some of the pics on the second gen Camaro sites, they are bound to have some good examples.

[ORIGLS6]

Dan,

Nearly every wheel manufacturer made a copy of the TT in those days. Keystone made one with an alloy face and a steel rim. that was the most common type, probably because of cost. I had a couple of sets of those years ago. Fenton and Appliance made the most accurate copies of the TT since they were an all alloy wheel. Then you got into the Atlas, Astro, etc. Even Cragar got into it for a while with a matte finish, dark spoke version of the SS wheel. I currently have a full set of vintage TT s in 14x7 but they need some work on the lips due to contact with a curb. Also have a pair of 'no name' copies that even have the peaked spokes. They are in very good condition. I just recently bought a set of the new Torque Thrust "D"s to go on my '57 Bel Air, if I ever get it finished. Unfortunately the choices for the new TT D's is limited. I wanted 14 x 7's all around but they're not available so I went with 14 x 6 fronts and 15 x 7 rears. Now I'm leaning toward having the vintage TT's refinished and putting them on a '69 Nova!!!