Philippe is correct, of course. I sold a set of these rims on eBay last
year and spent quite a bit of time finding and cleaning up the original
stamped company information on the inner rim surface. One can find this by
looking on the bead seating surface near the valve hole. It is stamped
fairly shallow, but you can read it if the wheel is clean and you have good
light.
I had the name a little garbled in my previous message today (at my age, I
sometimes get words in the wrong order, I guess). The company was Motor
Wheel Rim company, but either they were at one time called Motor Rim Wheel
company, or my brain is playing tricks on me.
In any case, they certainly are NOT Kelsey Hays rims. This same company
supplied the rims for the Packard Caribbeans also, thus my familiarity with
them.
Dick Benjamin
----- Original Message -----
From: Philippe COURANT <accf_clb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: IML: KELSEY HAYES WIRE WHEELS 4 the 1955 Imperial
> Just a correction that someone sent me some months ago: the
> original wire wheels for '55-56 Chrysler and Imperial were not
> Kelsey Hayes brand but Motor Wheel; here's the original message:
> Hi Philippe,
>
> " As I'm finishing up a long restoration on our '55 Newport I was
> looking through your excellent info pages on these cars. One
> correction I would like to offer is that the wire wheels offered
> by the factory were not produced by Kelsey Hayes, but by Motor
> Wheel. This seems to be a very common mistake by many writers of
> Chrysler products. Also did you know that the Imperial wire
> wheels were unique to that car and the Chrysler station wagons
> alone. They are 52 spoke as opposed to the 48 spoke version used
> on all other Chrysler products. Also they were 1/2" wider than
> the Chrysler wire along with the larger bolt pattern.(..)
> All the best, John & Christie Lazenby "
>
> Don't know where we could find Motor Wheel wheels (and don't know
> if the C300 and 300B had also Motor Wheels wire wheels) ...
>
> --
> Philippe COURANT (Pau, France)
> Imperial 57 Crown convertible
> Buick 58 Roadmaster sedan
>
> - American Car Club de France (ACCF) : http://www.accf.com
>
> - Chrysler Imperial France : http://www.ifrance.com/c-i-f
>
> - Cadillac " Standard of Excellence " :
> http://www.ifrance.com/accf-cad
>
> - SportsCars : http://www.ifrance.com/accf-sprtcar
>
>
>
>
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