68 SS Hubcaps

[68rsssrag]

Steve

The PN was usually a rubber ink stamp on the back of the stainless disk. The potmetal 3 ear spinner has a part # on the back of one vane but this is common to all.

I put the photos under a binocular mircoscope today and the original covers on the car in summer 1968 were definitely black banded...still wonder if this is a RS/SS option issue. The 117 part out of the box is per my pic on earlier post. This is a circa 1983 purchase.

Arno

[Steve68]

Arno

I don't think we can go by the 1983 covers for verification as there is enough difference between the 1965 Chevy II 3871174 and the 1968-69 Camaro 3871174 pictures in the parts book alone.  To use covers 14-15 years later than what we are interested (68) in would be way out there IMO.  I am afraid any stamp is long gone from my covers but will pull the other 3 to look anyway.  You do realize my car is a SS/RS.......right?

Steve

[68rsssrag]

Steve

No I had not realized you car was SS/RS as well. This gets really interesting. You have original hubcaps and so do I (in my case 1 cover and 1968 photos). There is the 1983 GM NOS box with  3871174 as shown in my 1979 parts book and Mitchell which is black but no help. The original GM beauty shots are black but as John says, who knows.

I think it is time to get input from others. Could be we have a situation where we have new input to the CRG Reports.
Anyone with input please respond to this thread.
Arno

[68rsssrag]

I checked with Larry Christensen on this and he isn't 100% sure but he thinks the Argent Silver were 1964 Impala SS and Black was 1968 Camaro SS.

Still a mystery to me.

Arno

[Steve68]

Arno

Now that WOULD be a mystery in my case.  That would mean that 4 NEW Argent Silver 1964 Impala SS covers were put on my spanking new 1968 Camaro right there at the dealership. Additionally, and as I relayed to you in an earlier post, the ones I saw on the showroom Camaro, that was almost identical to mine and that had the same covers as mine, would have had to have been switched too!!    Where would they get new 64 covers to start with and why would they do that?  He may not be 100% sure but I have tell you that I am 100% sure that since the argent came on my car it's going to take some powerful proof to convince me that they are not correct and that somehow, someway, my new car had new 4 year old Impala covers put on it. 

Steve

[Rich]

Not even sure we're seeing the same things in the same photos.  The photo in the dealer book looks to me just like the NOS photo that Arno shows as his #2; inner black ring and outer black ring.   And that is the same cover shown in Hooper's 1998 book taken on a supposedly original (but who knows) car.  Rich

[Steve68]

Rich

What dealer book are you refering to?  Publication year?  I've looked at the photo in Hooper's book too and I think shadows are in play.  If you look real close you can see that the "black" of the center area around the SS is black and when you compare it to the inner ring area it is, at a minimum, several shades lighter.  Looking closer, light is reflecting off the rib and shinning on the inner ring area and it looks more gray (silver) than black in my picture.  The outer ring in my photo looks even lighter than the inner ring.  With all respect, I will put my original covers up against Hooper's photo any day, if you know what I mean     I have started to look back through some of my original paperwork to see what, if anything, I can find that might help on this.  So far the only thing I see on the original order form is "wheel covers" and the price.  Will keep looking.

Steve

[Rich]

The 68 dealer book.  Not saying what's definitive, just that the images I'm looking at aren't shadows.  They are what they are, right or not.

[Steve68]

Thanks for the clarification.  With regard to the shadows...I was referring to the picture in Hooper's book and not the dealer book.

[68rsssrag]

I'm with Steve on Hooper book, he is often very good or very bad so we need to take his with a grain of salt.

The 4 color dealer sales brochures, both large 8 X 10 and small 4 X 5, both do show black rims as do the ads I collected from mags like Life.

I'm still wondering if this is a color of car matching issue. Mine is Matador Red with black stripes/rag top and with SS 396 blackout paint trim.

Arno

[Rich]

Your point about Hooper well taken, but I don't believe that was Steve's question.  He was questioning what he was seeing in Hooper's printed photo.  In my view there isn't any question about what I'm seeing in the photo.  I see the same cover as your NOS cover being worn by a 68 Camaro.  The traceability of the photo may be in question given the source, but the photo is what it is.

[Rich]

The vintage part books show only one part number with no notation on color.  I don't believe there was any cover difference by car color.

[Steve68]

Guys

Just to make sure, we are talking about the same photo (black & white)....top of page 170 in the 1998 "The Conclusive Camaro Recognition Guide" ....right?  Rich, you are right, I do question what I'm seeing in the photo but I don't want to get hung up on that picture so I'm going to just say (and then I'm done with this photo forever now that I'm cross-eyed from looking at it so long ) that the one I'm looking at, given the possibilities of differences (quality) in printing and whatever, just doesn't look black to me in that inner ring but I'm old and I'm probably wrong  .  Arno, my car is British Green with white stripes, black vinyl hard top, with SS blackout paint trim.  Questions: John Z, who made the covers for GM and where did they come from (mfg plant locations)?  Rich do you see any indication in the part books that there may have been a cover that was "set aside" for a SS ordered vehicle?  By that I mean, if I ordered a SS with regular dog dish caps would it have come with SS covers because I ordered the SS....is there anything that would lend itself to conclude that from the books?  One more question for you Rich, how many original SS owners do we have in the CRG data base?  Am I the only original owner that kept his original SS covers on his Baby all these years (Please treat that as a rhetorical Q if you like Rich  )

Steve

[Rich]

Pg 170, yep.

SS with no wheel options came with the dog dish caps in 68.

The cover in question is the RPO option "P01" cover as applied to the SS, and for 68 the RPO P01 cover was different than the P01 cover on non-SS.  The non-SS cover is what is on my car, as in http://www.camaros.org/rich/morephotos/P6097439.JPG

You would have gotten the covers in question if you ordered option P01.  If you don't have P01 on your order sheet, then the factory put dog-dish hub caps on the car, and the dealer put these full-wheel covers on it after it came off the truck.  And if he found some SS style wheel covers in the parts department, they may have grabbed a previous version, not realizing it was slightly different.

Rich

[Steve68]

Ok, let me see if I have this right.  A SS car that was not ordered with P01 came to the dealership with dog dish caps.  A SS ordered with P01 had the SS wheel covers put on at the factory.  The SS that was not ordered with P01 and came with dog dish had the dog dish taken off and replaced with SS wheel covers at the dealership (from their stock) because it was a SS.  Is all that correct?