I need your advice. I am going with painted steel wheels and spider caps on my '59 Edsel. The car will be lowered with shiny paint. Should I run wide whites or skinny whites. Your opinions please.
Let's see a picture. Color of the wheels and the car would make a difference. My opinion, depends on the era you are going for. '61 and earlier= wide whites '62 and newer skinny whites. My own '60 will be going skinny once it gets painted because I'm going for the show custom look of '62-'63.
Lets assume you're building it like someone would back in the day. I'd say it would take about three years before Joe average, who wants a nice street custom, would buy it. I'm not saying noone bought a new car and cut it up, I know it wasn't that uncommon, but it wasn't what the average person did. With that being said, you can run wide whites, just make sure the car represents 1960 or 1961 very well, and a '59 edsel should do that very well. When I was thinking of rocking an edsel, I planned on chrome wheels, skinny whites, and it was gonna be slammed. I was gonna flake the hell out of it aswell, so it would have been a '62-'63 style custom. Oh yeah, and don't care what other people think, run what you want.
I'm planning to run the color-matched '58 Edsel spinner caps on my own personal '59 Edsel and I will be running wide whites on it. Personally, I feel that there was no car made in 1959 that's too modern to run WWW's, 1960 it depends on the car. I would only put the skinny whites on the car if you're aiming for a 1960's custom look, and even in that case, I'd try some two-stripe tires or Vogues or something like that.
Honestly I would run the 2" to 2 1/2" whide whites and I would run reverse chrome wheels on it. Thats what I would do.
I have to buck popular opinion and go for skinny whites. I'm picturing your painted wheels and spider caps with wide whites and I think it'll look goofy.
id also have to say skinny whites. i have them on my 50. they were all i had at the time before i could afford some wide whites. but ive grown to love them. not alot of people have them so its kinda unique i guess. just my 2 cents
I gotta say skinny too on an Edsel.There is a lot of chrome,curves,and angles on that body styling and I think the wides would be a bit much.I also think wide whites were going on the way out about the time the Edsel would have been "touched up".
Now available from HOTRODRUBBER on here.I have a set and they're great.I was shooting for 1960.Check out the "Coachmen Show" footage on here,really shows the variety in whitewalls way back,might give ya some ideas Paul
"Retro" was an unknown term when wide whites were still in style. Everybody was looking for something new, not something old. With hubcaps or chromies you could go either way, but with spiders/rings your wheels will look "confused"...an awkward mixture of the old and the new. Narrow whites were considered stylish and in near universal use by '62/'63 when spiders came on the scene. Wide whites were still popular, but were considered "dated" by then. You'd occasionally see the wide white/spider combination back in the day, but usually on chrome reversed wheels, not on painted wheels. There were exceptions, of course, but they looked just as awkward then as they would today. My suggestion: take a look at some of the "little books" of the '58-'62 era and get some ideas of what was "in"...and what wasn't. You can do whatever you want, of course, but the car will look happier if you stay within convention and avoid mixing eras. Just my $.02
Here's my 59' before and after so you can make up your own mind. This is when Alan Mays owned it This is how I got it As it sits today
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