VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1955-1957 Correct paint color for wheels

We have a 57 BelAir that is Larkspur Blue (top) over Harbor Blue (bottom). I believe the correct color for the wheels is Harbor Blue? Is this correct? I am having some difficulty locating this in my "Chevrolet by the numbers" book. Can you help?

IF the car was built after March of 1957 - the wheels would have been silver - and not body color.

So, what's your build date?

Thanks for the reply. The S/N of the car is VC57S297309. I don't know how to determine the build date but it looks like it was built later than March 1957 as the original owner purchased the car in November 1957.

Hi there,

Your Bel Air was produced during the month of August, 1957 at the St Louis plant.

Since this is considerably beyond the "wheel paint color change" - the wheels would be correct being painted Inca Silver - not the primary body color of blue.

Thank you for posting the VIN.

I just realized I forgot (seems to come with age) to thank you for your help. "THANKS!"

joeyk3950 As I was told,as per a bulletin,after too many new car owners discovered wrongly stowed spare tires,with rims not matching color of car showed-up in customer's trunks,many not discovered until much time had elasped,and a flat tire occured did the owner find out he had the wrong color rim on his spare. Management issued a Bulletin, any Chevy manufactured after Feb. 28,1957............would all have argent silver rims. In the era of no computers, just getting 5 tires of the same brand,size, whitewall or not,was a real logistics nightmare, soooo they eliminated the easiest logistic to eliminate human error at the cheapest cost.....

They did it for two reasons. Easier for dealer to do tire swap (whites for blacks) and fewer rim colr/ tires combinations at the assembly line.


Another response from 10 years ago..........