41 60 special wheel paint

[mr41cadillac]

taking my tires off now and want to paint my wheels, that are red . anyone know the approximate correct orininal shade of red at paint store or home depor lowes etc. the red is to me not the best with the black car. any suggestions on another wheel color that may look better? thanks john 

[Bill Ingler #7799]

Hi John: Below is a page from the Cadillac Master Parts List which shows three colors for wheels in 1941. These are Black, Vincennes Red and Triton green. Vincennes Red is by far the most popular color. If you want to spend the next couple of hours on finding out what color is Vincennes Red, then go to the top of the page- find the word Search and click. Then type in Vincennes Red. You will find 44 postings talking about Vincennes Red.    Bill

[Doug Houston]

I jhave a chip for Vincennes Red. The nearest one that I could find for years, was '60 Ford Monte Carlo Red. Even THAT is getting a few years ago, now!!

[mr41cadillac]

im taking the 40 year old tires off wire wheeling around the rims. im painting the wheels after removing all old paint , a red. also going to put on new  blackwall radials 235 /75r1 from tires plus. . I can paint on the whitewall. my driving is only going to be around town. total cost will be about 320. vs 1200 for the whide whites. thanks for all advice.  john

[markl]

John,
I would recommend that you consider Powder coating.  Don't know if there is an exact match for Vincenness Red out there in Powder, but I bet there is.   If the outer surfaces of the wheel are not severely pitted, I would think Powder is your best bet.

For one thing, SOP is to have the wheel sandblasted down to bare metal, which lays the rust issue to rest for the future. 

My tastes (okay this is only personal) find the small hub cap + trim ring and the original pin-striping look best w/ black wall tires.

You didn't mention which size hub caps you'll be running, but if they are the small ones, you ought to start looking for a pin-striper that can give you the appropriate gold rings that I believe came w/ your wheels.  You might also want to record the diameters of those rings before you do the paint removal/blasting.

I bet that someone has already weighed in w/ the appropriate powder formula in the 44 posts that Bill mentioned.  I do think that red wheels are the best looking option for a car of your vintage (1941?) and color (black).

Mark Lowery, CLC #25216

[Bill Ingler #7799]

John: I will second what Mark has said about getting your wheels powder coated especially since you are buying radials. I also recommend that you don`t buy the tires until you know that the radials mounted on the rear wheels have sufficient clearance with the rear skirts. The cross profile on some of sizes of the radial tire are in some cases much wider than the original 700 x15 bias ply tires that came new with the car.   Bill