WHAT COLOR SHOULD MY TOW TABS BE?

[Jim Ferron]

This color...

Mine WERE original paint, before I blasted 'em ...I sprayed some John Deere Yellow on one and the match was EXACT.

[Tommy]

I took a close look at my TB30's and they were silver under the black paint.



Tommy [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/smile.gif[/img]

[PxTx]

Took the oppurtunity at the MCACN show to get a good look at the RG 69 Motion Camaro wiht the &quot;fabricated tow tabs&quot; and even spoke to Joel about them.







Just like many racing parts, the final fit and finish is up to the end user. Black is just as appropriate as any other color.

To help figure out when NMW began making chassis specific tabs, I present the following from the RG Camaro, I would be interested to hear some opinions.

The 1967/68 tabs part number TB9 look like this:


I seem to see some familiar elements in the RG car.







They may have used, 69 Camaro tabs or 67/68 ones but neither will fit a Camaro with an Endura bumper.

[Salvatore]

I love that handy work in the old days. Bottom line......they worked!

[mockingbird812]

Good info. Consensus was the the tow bar was locally fabricated. It was VERY heavy as I repositioned it a couple of times.

[PxTx]

Sure, that thing wouldn't ship too well either like the popular NMW one. Joel thinks they bought the tow hubs and tabs from NMW at the same time. Then had to do the fab to get them to work. I should have asked about the bar, but I didn't. Prior to it being chromed, it was clear that it was locally made one-off.

[PxTx]

Here is another interesting one. Original owner (Lud) BM Camaro. Spoke to Lud about the car. It is very original, but the tow tabs were built and installed by Lud, less than 3 months after owning the car!







So often we hear storied of things being a certain way when new. Lud was pretty cool telling how the car was actually a lot faster than he 1st expected. Quickly learned that the street racing he thought he wanted to do proved to be too dangerous with a car like this. Tow tabs went on. Car went to the race track. Joel delived the performace and Lud delived as a driver. Simple recipe for a whinner!

[PxTx]

I thought this is interesting. Here is a TB3 which is numerically the lowest part number NMW lists. Basically they have the TB3 for 56-62 Corvette, then the next is TB9 for 1967/8 Camaro, then UTB12 for the Universal and back to TB13 for 68 GTO.

I would love to know which tab NMW made 1st and when. I've read some of the speculation on the net. Not sure I agree.

The final finish on the edges of the TB3 do seem to be slightly different, with rounded corners of bolt tabs and such. I wonder if later TB3 look any different? I know there are ealry and late design TB30's.

TB3 is my dad's and the sticker is an eBay repop.

[resto4u]

my nos 67 tabs are painted silver. Tow bar is also silver. I am going to paint mine orange or yellow. I don't want people at shows knocking their leg against them. Roger

[PxTx]

Do you know when your items were manufactured? I would love to see pictures of the silver tow bar before you paint it. Is it even assembled if it is NOS? What does the box look like? Thanks!