As a reader or listener, when I see that an author or musician labels a work “Part 1,” I expect a Part 2. James Brown was famous, among other things, for dividing his work into parts, and I still prefer Ray Charles’s “What’d I Say, Part 1” to Part 2 of the same name. Therefore, when the first installment of “Dog Dish Afternoon” was reposted last week, six years after I wrote it, I was reminded of my own lack of follow through; and while I can’t pretend to be a legendary soul singer, I can rummage through my files for more greatest “Dog Dish” hubcap hits from the Stanton Mid-Michigan Motorplex. Prepare for Part II.
It’s common in writing and singing to open with a hook, and mine is this 1970 Buick GS with a 455 Stage 1. Buick is perhaps my favorite single brand of antique car, and the Stage 1 is a podium finisher in terms of collectibles from the Tri-Shield. Being a more upscale division, the base hubcap may look wrong to some, but considering that the Stage 1 Buick was one of the fastest cars of the heady era from 1964-1974, and that speed and posturing are two separate objectives, I think it is a refreshing stand-in for the more prevalent Buick Rallye Wheel.
A couple years newer and a couple parking spaces away is this 1972 Dodge Demon 340, which also is more commonly seen with Chrysler Rallye Wheels. Aside from its potent 340 small-block, this Demon is notable for its consistent black and white contrasts: vinyl top, stripes, tires, interior…nice looking car.
Another entrant from Mother Mopar is this 1969 ‘Cuda 440, one of only 340 produced in 1969. Cramming that tall deck big-block into the ‘Cuda was a difficult task, and there was no room left in the engine compartment for even such niceties as power steering. Needless to say, this base-hubcapped A-Body is a single-minded entity if ever there was one.
In a continuation of the Chrysler contingent, this Liberty Mutual-like 1970 Duster wears the uncommon “Curious Yellow” color, in addition to a 340 and yes, base hubcaps.
It is probably coincidence rather than an economic statement about Chrysler’s customers that many of my “dog dish” pictures involve Mopars, but this 1963 Plymouth was for sale, and its basic sedan status supports the use of the basic hubcap.
It is a slant six car, and from what I remember, the owner was asking $7500. Nice car, but probably a tough sell at that price, which is more an indictment of years of anti-sedan bias on the part of the collector car buying public than anything else.
Speaking of basic sedans, does any car earn its dog dish stripes with more earnestness than a Rambler American? This 1967 version in basic beige typifies the most inexpensive of American automobiles, one that would last through the Hornet’s debut, one that was minimally changed for the last half of the 1960s. The hood was closed and no owner was around, but I’ll guess it is a six-cylinder car.
I’ll walk past this dog dish-equipped Plymouth without disparagement; after all, it’s perhaps the meanest of all muscle cars, a ’67 GTX with a Hemi. I thought about buying a well-worn 440 GTX several years ago; it would have been the best beater/driver ever, but if I bought everything I ever wanted I’d have even more of a car problem than I already have.
I’m going to get away from Stanton temporarily, because there’s no way to not include this car and feel good about myself. It’s a 1968 Malibu convertible, red-on-red, with red-striped tires and base hubcaps. It’s beautiful.
Back at Stanton, I am fascinated by this Chrysler – it’s a fusion of 1967 and 1968 models. It has a 1968 license plate, 1968 front bumper side markers, no rear side markers, and a 1967 grille. Either way, I love it, and it has dog dish hubcaps, with an asterisk for also wearing trim rings.
This is the Chrysler’s interior, ready for a long trip.
Here is an interesting 1976 Malibu with base hubcaps.
The base Malibu didn’t rate stacked headlights in 1976, which is a stylistic advantage in my opinion.
This Malibu has benefitted from a couple of upgrades, including what looks like a Hurst floor shifter for the automatic (Paul pointed out the lack of a clutch pedal – thanks, Paul.) and a sport steering wheel.
It is common for writers and singers to provide closure to the reader or listener. In my last installment of “Dog Dish Afternoon,” I focused on a 1969 Nova 396; therefore, I’ll end with this 1968 equivalent.
Rather than the L78 in last installment’s Nova, this one runs the L34 350-horsepower version of the 396.
Although it’s possible that exactly nobody, including myself, was waiting for Part II of this series, perhaps I will indulge myself in another six years and give Part III a try. These hubcaps are everywhere if you know where to look.
Dog dish hubcaps and steel wheels just kind of drifted away without anyone noticing. These are all great choices, and the old light trucks with dog dishes are fantastic as well. The beige Rambler is my personal favorite, going right to the idea that if you take a bare-bones base model of a good car, and present it nicely, it is usually very attractive.
Styled steel wheels really replaced them, at least on smaller cars, once the engineers needed more wheel ventilation for disc brakes and the accountants realized it was cheaper to provide a naked wheel apart from a small center cap with the whole shebang painted a uniform argent silver than it was to paint the steelies in 10-15 different body colors and supply a chrome hubcap.
Dog dish hubcaps and steel wheels just kind of drifted away without anyone noticing.
I rather disagree. This post shows how they’ve come back; they’re quite in. Many of these cars originally came with standard full-size wheel covers, which are now rather “out”. And a lot of folks are tired of the typical aftermarket mags. Steelies are very much in, and of course the dog dishes that typically go with them.
I should have clarified, the dog dishes drifted away as factory equipment over time (center caps and trim rings on steel wheels often replaced them). The small caps are a nice marker of a particular era in old cars. One can widen the steel wheels under them for a good look (the first couple of cars on today’s post may have had that done to their wheels). Then there is the series of holes drilled in the small caps of the police cars of the era. Knowing what I think I know about the steel wheels of the time, I am not sure what those holes accomplished, other than some sort of marginal heat reduction of the spindle and the center section of the wheel.
Gotcha’.
You beat me to it with the Mopar “ventilated” dog dishes, my favorite.
I’ll take a shot at the reason hubcaps disappeared, and suggest it mostly has to do with the advent of FWD and the size of the wheel. Mainly, these two factors conspired to changed the offset of the wheel which might have prohibited the way a hubcap was attached via the three little ‘nubs’ which were on the ridge which surrounded the wheel lugs.
Additionally, all new wheels seem to have holes drilled around the circumference. The way old RWD wheels were stamped, this wasn’t possible. I suspect wheel manufacturers simply figured out they didn’t need all of the thick metal that was used on the older steel wheels and lightened them up.
So, it’s the hubcap attaching points that disappeared (for whatever reason) and wheelcovers are now universal on any of today’s steelies that aren’t specifically styled to be used without them.
Police packages still use them, never really went away. There’s actually a Challenger in the area I see now and then that the owner uses police wheels on, stands out more positively than a hellcat widebody to me 🙂
I bought a set of steel rims for my wife’s 2012 Mustang to mount her snow tires on – I never even thought to check if there’s anywhere to mount a hub cap. I’ll need to check that out!
I’ve found the dog dishes on police cars useful to help determine whether the big American sedan next to me was an unmarked cop or a civilian, since civilian cars of that type rarely have dog dishes anymore (the unique grilles Ford used on police package Tauruses and Crown Vics helped too).
The difference might be that today’s hubcaps seem to be designed to work with a specific manufacturer’s steelies. Back in the day, steel wheel centers were universal; hubcaps would interchange between all domestic brands. I don’t think the same can be said of today’s center hub covers (I wouldn’t even call them ‘caps’).
+1 on the Rambler, I could see making my own sleeper version of the SC/Rambler with that one. And the other item to note is that Ford changed to steel wheels on smaller bolt centers starting in 1940 and put dog dishes and trim rings on them. In the 40’s and 50’s most hot rods used those items and that was the look to have until chrome reverse wheels and then mag wheels came along in the late 50’s and beyond.
During my “car” formative years, steel wheels/dog dish hubcaps, and black wall tires were considered skinflint/poverty spec/thrifty/etc. take your pick! (IMO) As personal image became more important as displayed by vehicle choice/options, these just didn’t have “the” look. There were the import exceptions though; Honda specialized in styled steel wheels, accented by a chrome trim ring, lug nuts and center caps. Today’s cheap plastic wheel covers for the most part seem to be tolerated, or conversely, removed all around for the steelie look. I personally have always preferred the optional factory wheels first, and full wheel covers a distant second, resulting in the immediate swapping of the dog dishes on my Charger 500 for Magnum 500’s! :-).
I removed the silver plastic wheel covers on the Tundra and Fit, stored and looking new for trade-in time. Tundra was sold with them unscratched by off-roading.
I prefer the black steelie look. Fit has chrome Honda center caps from an earlier Civic and decorative caps for the lug nuts.
That Rambler is a twin to my little beige ’66 Rambler, which still rocks it’s dog-dishes after covering just 25k miles.
Whitewalls, too! Only the big Chrysler wagon in today’s post got the whitewalls as well. A little dress-up for the stripper Rambler. Nice car!
Nice! I was digging that brown Ramber too. It’s identical to the one my father had when I was young. “Brownie” got traded in on a new Vega in 1974 🙁
The Hurst floor shifter in the ’76 Malibu is a neat trick. At first, I thought it a manual conversion as the last four-speed was available in ’74, leaving only a three-speed column shifted three-speed for six-cylinder variants. One does not see enthusiast colonnades all that often.
nice article!
The last year of the four speed being 1974 must only be for the Colonnade Malibus . My ’79 Malibu which I have owned from new has a factory four speed which I ordered it with. I sure wish it had a factory Hurst shifter, though.
It is interesting how language and terminology changes. In the late ’60’s we just called them “hubcaps”. If we felt a need to embellish, “cheapo-hubcaps” or something similar was used.
When the muscle (supercar to some) car era was re-born the phrase “dog dish” or “poverty caps” were used by magazine writers everywhere.
Sort of like “VIN numbers” or only 137,000 “original” miles.
They are now the standard, until someone comes up with a new catch phrase.
Not a complaint, just an observation.
I don’t recall ever hearing “steelies” in my youth – they were just wheels, which were assumed to be steel unless you said “aluminum” or “alloy” which were relatively rare. Now it’s the other way around.
You’re right, no one I knew called them steelies either.
It would be like saying, I’m going to buy a C-2 Corvette or a Gen.1 Buick Riviera. No one then would know what you were talking about.
But, new phrases are inevitable, and people acted surprised when they find out they were coined decade(s) after the fact.
they were called “disc” wheels in the 40’s and 50’s according to hot rod historian Don Montgomery.
Those all look great I’ll bet the owner of the ’63 Plymouth could get his money but needs to show/advertise it somewhere else. To someone like you that lives and breathes these cars it may not be a good value but to someone else (read hipster with beard and beanie) looking for something different to drive around in that looks old, cool, and still nice, that’s a pittance of a price. Maybe it being in Michigan is an even bigger hindrance for the same reasons, move it to a coast and it should sell fast.
Even the ’76 Malibu that I’d normally have no interest in is interesting, I have come around to liking the extra plain dashboards and interiors when in good nick, I think the junker Nova from a few months turned it in me as compared to the junker overwrought Granada from about the same time. And of course Lloyd Dobler drove a ’76 Malibu but in blue so it’s got that going for it too 🙂
And wagon is supremely cool, love it!
Good point about the Plymouth – out on the west coast, a hipster car like this with air conditioning will probably bring a lot more than it will here. I think Michigan is pretty set in its ways when it comes to old cars – there are a lot of old time car guys living here. Of course, this car might already be sold; I think I took that picture two years ago.
If that had been a ’62, this West Coast hipster would be seriously tempted. 🙂
I’ve got a real thing for the ’62 Plymouth. And given that every 2-door sedan has been turned into a Max Wedge clone, the 4-door will do, as would the /6. I’d prefer no a/c, though.
There’s always the Matchbox version – new this year! 🙂
Count me in on liking the ’62. I even liked them when they were new. Believe it or not, I also like the Dodge for some reason.
Here in Indiana the State Police used a lot of ’62 Plymouth patrol cars. They were all two doors and painted dark blue with a white roof. Of course they had the dog dish hubcaps, too.
Once out of service they were very popular with drag racers, both on the track and off.
I actually love the purpose-driven look of a set of steelies with dog dishes…and much prefer them to the ever-present Cragar S/S rims which seem to be on every other muscle machine in any given car show. Back in the day dog dishes might’ve been construed as a base model and/or cheapskate look, but IMHO they lend a certain sinister look nowadays…strictly business.
Wow! All my NOVAs had FULL hubcaps, but the blue SS396 with the dog dishes works for me! NICE, very NICE!!
Even the ’76 Malibu with its “battering ram” bumpers looks pretty good.
However, for cheap, but nice the lil Rambler American does the trick. I had intended to buy one like it upon returning from my 13 month, all expen$e paid sojurn in Nam, but events precluded that. Instead I ended up buying a used ’64 Tempest Custom 6 with full hubcaps! 🙂 The Tempest also had a radio, but nothing beyond that and the hubcaps. Definitely not fast, with 17 mpg as my constant over the 11 months and 47,000 miles I had the car. Not bad for a $600 initial “investment”. Nice lil write up, thanks…DFO
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I too am a member of the dog dish club with my Dirty Dart.
Those ash trays look good on any car from the period. If you’d spec’d them from the factory most manufacturers painted the wheels to match the body color. A bit of a production issue as full wheel cover equipped cars had them painted black. At least that’s what I found on my 67 LeSabre.
Dog dishes are interesting to me in how much they can vary in presentation, styled steel wheels and of course mags always look stylish/sporty, doesn’t matter if they’re rally wheels on on a C3 Corvette or road wheels on a 76 Lesabre. Dog dishes can look utilitarian, cheap, classy, menacing, or wild all depending on the car they’re on, the suspension stance, the wheel color, the tire sidewall style, or the tire and wheel width. The Demon has probably my personal favorite appearance with them, with the black wheel and RWL tire, body colored other than black I’m less of a fan of even though that’s the factory correct way on most of these cars.
A great collection. I think Mopars actually did equip a higher percentage of cars with poverty caps as compared with the others. The other odd thing is that while Ford and GM caps tended to interchange on each others wheels (at least in my experience) Mopar caps were slightly smaller in diameter. I’m actually surprised that none of these cars used the law enforcement versions with the holes drilled all around near the outer edge.
When I took the expensive optional covers off my 66 Fury III I thought about going with the basic Mopar caps until a friend shamed me into finding another set of wheelcovers.
One other thing, the Chrysler wagon never offered those caps – I don’t think any Chrysler did, certainly not from 65-78.
I believe that at least on ’65-66 the Newport had a small hubcap standard. They may have been more elaborate than a basic dog dish, but not a full wheel cover.
My perception is that the terms, “dog dish” and “steelies”, as with the ubiquitous knowledge and use of designations like A Body, Colonnade, and other terms boomed in the late ‘80’s with the collector car mania, cable TV shows and then the Internet. Back in the seventies we just associated small hubcaps with “strippers” but since none of us could afford “mags” we just took off the hubcaps and ran “bare nuts”. When I graduated to my Vega GT with styled steel wheels, the stainless trim rings disappeared one night, no doubt to adorn a Datsun 510 fitted with the desirable Corvair 6×13” steel rims which shared the same bolt circle as the 510, but were 1.5” wider. Plus-One to big 14” alloys was something one saw in magazines only, mostly on BMW 2002’s. All that said, I like the dog dish look on this era of Detroit cars, even if many of them came off the line with bigger wheel covers.
I believe Buick often used small hubcaps in the early 50s, supplementing them with chrome trim rings. I also suspect that Buick sometimes used red wheels when the car was black or even other colors. Of course, that’s another whole topic.
I found a picture of this car on a forum I visit. My ’53 Special is due for tires soon, and I was thinking of a way around spending $1000 for Coker wide whites. I really like this look, so I bought a set of caps and trim rings…but I think I’ll chicken out and get a set of wide whites after all. 🙂
Don’t. If it were restored in gleaming paint, yes. But as it is, with that patina, it looks much better with the blackwalls.
Reminds me quite a bit of one of my all-time favorites:
Of course it’s your car. 🙂
Oh, that’s not my car, Paul. This one’s mine.
Oops; I didn’t think you did patina! 🙂
But yes, I do like that look too.
I’d prefer baby moons and trim rings on a lot of those cars, but they seem to have faded as factory dog dishes have come back.
Those mid-trim cars with the sporty tires and dog dishes bring back some memories.
My dad is not really a car guy. He appreciates having the nicest car he can afford at a given time, but was never particularly aggressive with parting with money to get to an automotive goal.
And, so it was in 1969 that our aluminum block Buick Special wagon decided to mark the street with coolant while 3 hours away from home at my grandparent’s house. Dad decided to deal with it by replacing the Special.
Likely influenced by the near new 1967 Caprice my grandfather had, he visited a Chevy dealer and picked from a few year old 1968 Impala four door sedans.
Being a price driven guy, he picked the one without AC (cheaper to buy aftermarket, you know), and a motley set of dogs (mutts?), three from apparently 1964, and one from 1963.
Full wheel covers may have been standard on the Impala, as 99.9% of them seemed to have them. My dad talked for years about at least getting the dogs to match, but it just wasn’t at the top of his list. A set of full covers would likely have been cheap and easy to find as Chevy used the ’68 full covers through at least 1970 on the Nova, not to mention a gazillion ’68 full-size cars.
Our mutts were eventually matched with a set of Firestone 500 tires, with a distinctive dual stripe and numbers.
The effect was much like the Skylark in the lead photo. I thought the situation a bit dowdy back in the ’70s, but my dad has lived long enough to be vindicated as a progressive 50 years later!
Perfect for the sporting Impala 307 man…..
I’m not a fan. A trim ring makes for a passing grade. Just. Ditto for the Fiat steel wheels with the many round holes in them.
Or a slightly wider wheel where the hub cap is flush with the rim flange.
And my pet hate, black wheels and dog dishes. I like a clear demarcation where the tyre ends and the rim starts.
Rant over, and I wish my Fiat 125S had these Cromodora mags and their dog dishes. Any other cars with mags/alloys and dog dishes come to mind?
The 80s Mustang 10 hole wheels have a dog dish vibe to them, SSP package ones paint the alloy wheel black really giving that metal finished center a dog dish look
Most of the SSP Mustangs here in Indiana had the black painted alloys when issued to the Troopers, but I noticed that pretty quickly the black finish was removed from most of them. The Troopers with these cars tended to personalize them in most cases. I don’t know if it was from personal taste or just to make them blend in more. Most of them were already painted in common Mustang colors like red or teal.
At the time I did a lot of driving in my job. I furnished my own vehicles and had a 1986 Mustang fastback. All the SSP cars were notch back coupes, but many times I would end up being caught behind an overcautious driver going well below the speed limit because he thought I was a cop.
Nice read Aaron. I have real soft spot for 1970-72 Buick A-bodies, as one of the cars I learned to drive on was our family 1972 Skylark. That blue GS looks pretty good with the hubcaps rather than the typical Buick road wheels.
I also really like that ’76 Malibu. It’s not far off my car. The base models were so much better looking than the classics, which is why I changed mine. Unfortunately the base model interiors were very plain.
I thought of your car when I found this picture; I remembered that you had updated your front end. Big improvement!