Customs Wheel/Tire options for the 55

Ok....hub caps....if ya gotta run em....on that car...Lincoln Premiers would look good

 

Yeah, it's on the bucket list. Gotta be cheap though. I can't go $600 on a set of caps that could launch at any time.

 

I agree...I think I’ve got a couple driver quality caps in my stash....and for 600 bucks you could buy some
Chrome oe wheels, bullets, and lugs

 

Hey R,

Your 55 looks rather cool in that photo. Also, the Moose did an excellent job of making it look like the era selected. It is a nice car no matter what direction you take. We almost purchased an ex-Bonneville 56 Ford sedan from a friend in LA. It was black with blackwalls and Moon Discs. That was the popular race car look from 1959-61 straight from the salt flats. The price was right, but we already had the 58 Impala and 40 Ford Sedan Delivery. Many times, I wished we had the 56 black two door, Ford Sedan, too. It slipped away with confused heart.

The whitewall tires came with the 58 Impala as a new car. But, after several months, my brother turned the tires inside out and the whitewalls were on the inside. It was more intimidating with black walls. That was a trend for most of my friends back in those days, turning the whitewalls inside out to give the car a meaner look. It only took several days of road grime to make the whitewalls disappear. Usually, though, the car was so low or on a California Rake, that the whitewalls were hidden anyway.
14 Inch rims, stock whitewall tires, fairly narrow band.

Yes, that sounds silly, today, but back then, we tried painting the white wall surface before turning it inside out, and it looked good. The problem was any road hazard, rocks, or gravel chipped the black paint and the whitewall showed through. So for 59-60 and onward until I sold the 58 Impala, it was regular blackwalls and a variety of painted rims or hubcap combinations.

After a few years of running the blackwalls, we saw a combination add on to make blackwalls into white walls by inserting a circular white wall band. (loosening the tire from the rim, inserting the lip/ring and inflating the tire again) (1959) We tried it on the blackwalls and again, they were narrower band of white, than the original whitewall tires. That was interesting. Of course, we painted an experimental black ring around the narrower add-on white ring (like thick pinstriping) and it gave the look like that custom car from 1959 photo. It looked good, but it was an experiment, not the finished look.

Jnaki

It may not have been the case for the 59 custom car photo with the narrow band of white. But, it could have been an add-on or they used the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham narrow whites that were expensive and exclusive at the time. We were young teenagers with limited budgets, so a can of paint was less than those Cadillac tires. Vogue, perhaps? That was a long time ago.

As for your 55 Ford, as a mild custom, anything goes. But, the wide whites were pretty much standard unless you were an old custom car guy back then or had an unlimited budget for customizing stuff. Narrow bands were not popular until much later…then they fazed completely out of the scene. Bring on those narrow Redline tires from Inglewood Tire Company from another later 60s era.