The Official 356Talk Forum

All,

The use of body colored wheels on early A cars is fairly weel documented. What I believe is less well documented is till when the factory offered body colored wheels before switching to silver wheels as standard and which color cars came with the body colored wheels.

To start with the body colors, below is what I believe the factory used based on personal observations:

1956:
Black: Black wheels
Polyantha Red: Polyantha wheels
Graphite Metalic: Silver wheels
Sahara Beige: unsure
Lago Green: unsure
Silver Metallic: Silver wheels
Aquamarine Blue Metallic: Aquamarine wheels

58589 is a '57 Aquamarine Metallic car and has the body color painted wheels. As such I would hypothesize that for the '57 cars ordered in a '56 color the '56 wheel combination was still used. When the '57 colors phased in the use of body colored wheels was likely stopped.

Curious to hear other peoples thoughts on this

Joris, maybe some data:

1- Pg. 85 of Sloniger's "Porsche Guide" (1958 pub.), shows a '57 T1 normal coupe, dark metallic with matching (not silver) wheels. B/w photo appears to be in front of the factory building.
2-We had a neighbor as a kid who bought a new Lago green car with matching wheels in early '57.
3-Likewise, someone else in the neighborhood had a metallic grey car with matching wheels but it may have been a '56.

There was a slate grey Jaguar roadster with matching disk wheels down the block too. At the time I thought they all looked pretty dull compared to the red T-Bird driven by the blonde across the street.

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for your input. So it looks like graphite cars and Lago cars were offered with body colored wheels also. Can we conclude from this that for '56 body colored wheels were standard?

This is interesting as we have a '57 Lago Green car and did not realize it should have body color wheels.

Joris,
looks like we are interested in same details. I like the look of body color painted wheel and have thought about having them on my 56A coupe #56731.
I was never sure if it would be PC for a car that late. I think it gives the early A cars a really unique look. Hopefully your post will give us some new info. Problem I have is I don't have my original wheels. They were lost to chrome repos back in the early 80"s. Sooo... I have been looking for a set of 1/56 or 2/56 wheels for some time now (saw your add in the classified today). So far I have come up with only two wheels. When I complete the set and we find out that some mid year 56 cars did come that way I will most likely paint them Polyantha red to match the car.
Thanks for your help,
Bruce

For a long time whenever I saw body color wheels I assumed that was part of the standard "$29.95 No Ups" Earl Schieb paint job that I am sure some of our cars wore. I guess that is not the explanation.

"... it should have body color wheels."

Past the transition to silver wheels maybe? Unless it can be demonstrated parts were replaced, I tend to think what's on more or less original cars was on there to begin with.

I don't have an A car, however I do have body coloured wheels.

Heron Grey.

Totally wrong for my C car, but I have always liked the look they give on a 356.

Paints cheap, so it's worth experimenting.

A friend contacted me offline this weekend and told me about his six digit chassis number auqamarine metallic car. The car has silver wheels. This raises the question if silver wheels might have been introduced with the advent of the six digit chassis numbers for '57 cars ordered in a '56 color.

More data points would be greatly appeciated

Hey Martin,
I just left a story on the Textured hood post about me stripping the paint off the top of my hood in 1967. The manager at the Earl Schieb Paint shop said he would repaint the whole car ( if I would strip the hood with had some problems) and give me the Delux job for $75.00. He did and it was a really good looking job.(I thought at 18 yrs.old) The wheels stayed silver------- must have run out of paint....

Bruce Edge

"... if silver wheels might have been introduced with the advent of the six digit chassis numbers for '57 cars ordered in a '56 color. "

Introduced but not immediately at the SN change? The Sloniger car I mentioned above was a six digit car per the taillights, in a darker metallic color than silver. It was one of the other 2 '56 metallic colors carried over to '57; Lago Green or Acquamarine. Perhaps they had to exhaust the supply of matching colored wheels first.

OK, this is interesting, I am working on my early 56 T1 (august 55) and would like to know if my wheels should be same color as car?? I do have all but one wheel 9/55 and 10/55 which look like they all been painted over a few times. My coupe originally was ivory color, does any one know if the wheels should be same ? I will strip wheels to see and verify if they were ever a different color and I have one - 01/56 wheel which I will strip and see if it was different color. I shall let u know what I find...
thanks

Hello Ron, my guess is that your car was originally sharah beige. I believe those cars came with body colored wheels. Did you see my post on textured lids? Curious to learn what your car has.

Joris

Don't T-1 cars have a paint code on the door-jamb ID plate like the later cars?

The early T1 cars have a "Kunstharzlack" tag on them if the paint is enamel, but no paint code number. The metallic colors were switched from Nitrolack to enamel in early 1956. So the early T1 cars produced at the end of 1955 with metallic colors would not have these tags.