I talked with an interesting person at the Dairy Queen Cruise In.
Curt Meyer brought his fascinating street-legal sprint car. I asked him about it and learned that he was a former Corvette owner, club member, and an NCRS (National Corvette Restorers Society) judge.
Curt owned a \u201963 Corvette and wanted to display it at Bloomington Gold with knock off wheels. Paraphrasing Curt: \u2018Which, in NCRS judging, scored a big fat zero for the wheels category on a \u201963.\u2019 He said he had an original \u201963 brochure that said knock off wheels were a factory option in \u201963, but that no \u201863s were originally fitted with them.
I couldn\u2019t resist teasing him a little, \u201cI wonder what Noland Adams would say about it.\u201d Curt really didn\u2019t take the bait, but frankly, Mr. Adams couldn\u2019t say much as he passed away in early 2017 — but not before publishing two great reference books: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Corvette Technical Restoration Guide Volume 1 (for C1s) and Volume 2 (for C2s).<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the books are superb reference guides and detail the base cars plus all the options, year-by-year — though a few say there are some errors in the books. I had the pleasure of attending one of Mr. Adams\u2019 seminars at a Bloomington Gold<\/a> meet some years ago \u2013 a quiet and humble man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I learned in revisiting Noland Adams\u2019 book is that Curt is correct. Apparently no 1963 Corvettes were delivered to dealers or customers with knock-off wheels. Why? Because the castings were porous and would not hold air. Twelve or thirteen 1963 Corvettes were factory-fitted with knock-off wheels in the \u201963 model year, but the tires went flat in the storage yard before the cars could be loaded onto car-carriers (!!) and the early knock-off wheels were then removed and replaced with steel wheels before shipment to dealers. The wheels and hub adapters went through several part number changes and some sets were sold \u2018over-the counter\u2019 in \u201963, but apparently no \u201963 Corvette was delivered to a customer with factory-installed knock-offs. Like Curt said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Related, did you know that the \u201963 knock offs would have come with two-eared knock off \u2018nuts\u2019, rather than the three-eared nuts supplied in later years?<\/p>\n\n\n\n