1913 touring wheel and rim color

[MMorse]

I'm rebuilding the wheels on my 1913 touring due to loose spokes and felloes, as well as large cracks, etc. This caused me to wonder about the color of the wheels and the rims. Are the wheels the same as body color? Were the rims cadmium plated or galv, or were they also originally wheel or body color? I don't find anything about this in Bruce's book, but maybe I missed something. If you know the answer to these questions, I sure would be appreciative knowing.

Thanks,
Mike

[DHarmon]

Mike,
Wheels (Rims/Hub/Spokes) were painted body color. When I restored my '13 Roadster I asked the same question on this forum and Larry Smith sent me a bunch of photos of original cars that validated that they were painted body color.

Dave

[MMorse]

Excellent, Dave. Thank you very much! This makes painting the wheels much simpler. I appreciate your help.

Mike

[KWTownsend]

And correct body color for 1913 would be midnight blue.

[rickd]

A little more info from Larrys' article about the 1913 car; He indicates the wheels were blue with a V stripe on each spoke and a single stripe on the felloe. Just in case you want to add more detail to your wheels.

[Allan]

I believe the rims were not plated , cadmium or zinc. They were painted when the assembled wheel was painted.

Allan from down under.

[MMorse]

Thanks guys! I appreciate your help. I don't know that I'll add pinstriping for now, but perhaps someday. I have no plans to restore it to original, but if I do someday when I retire, it will be the dark midnight blue.

I bought the car several years ago and it's an older restoration- body color is green with cream/yellowish wheels. For the non-Model T people out there, half think that it's all original because of the condition. The other half think that it's wrong due to the presumed Henry Ford statement about all T's being black. I think the upholstery is original since it is leather and in very poor condition, but that's probably it. Fun car to own.

Thanks,
Mike

[KWTownsend]

Mike,
I love the green over black! Even if it is a color that did not come from the factory.

For Model Ts, I've never been a fan of cream colored wheels. Although many other early marquis had cream colored undercarriages and wheels, when they get dirty, they look terrible!

If it were my car, I'd paint the wheels green to match the body. Matching the color pinstripe would really set it off.
Otherwise, I'd paint the wheels black.

I see you have a Prest-O-Lite tank on the running board. Do your headlamps operate with acetylene? If they do, it kicks the cool factor up a couple of notches and you earn bonus points in my unimportant opinion...

: ^ )

Keith

[Original Smith]

My latest restoration is a 1913 runabout. I painted it with Chris Craft Blue, which is a dark blue, but probably not midnight.

[Original Smith]

Here are some recent photos.

[Art Ebeling]

On a car with blue wheels what color is the rear brake drum? Where they painted blue with the wheels or black? Art

[MMorse]

Keith, I agree completely about the cream colored wheels. Some guys like them, but I don't really. They are quite dirty. When I get the rebuilt wheels back, I plan to paint them black, but if I restore someday and paint it the original dark blue, then I'll repaint the wheels that color. Prest-O-Lite tank is not connected and I don't have a regulator. Something that I'll work on someday in the future once wheels are done and running well, and after I somehow repair one of the steel top bow pieces that's bad (and maybe after I replace the coilbox with the correct version or else a look-alike that takes later coils, rebuild the speedometer and get the parts to hook that up, and...

Larry, that is a beautiful looking car and the best looking blue for a '13 that I've seen. I've seen much lighter blue than that and it's not really my preference. I'll make a note of that blue in case I ever decide to restore this car.

The green on my car looks okay and it really looks quite well used and weathered, so don't be fooled by the picture I attached that makes it look nicer than it is. I really like that look though and it is in good shape. Other people seem to really like the somewhat 'original' look as well. I completely restored my '24 tudor to look shiny new and I'm not really ready to do that to the '13. The upholstery is really bad with much horsehair showing and the top is really ratty with incorrect rear window, and that might ultimately force me to restore the car fully to shiny new if I replace them. The inside of the top still looks like it had hosted 100 or more mice for a winter slumber party- yuck- despite a heavy cleaning I did last summer. A lot of people love that look though. The engine and transmission are now rebuilt as well as the rear end and driveshaft. Plus a new radiator. Once wheels are rebuilt I feel that it should be a pretty safe and hopefully reliable car to drive.

Thanks again for your responses!
Mike

[Original Smith]

For those who didn't know him, two of my photos show Randall Anderson, a real former pillar of the hobby.

[Wayne Sheldon]

I never got to meet R V in person, but through numerous mutual friends I knew of him to be among the best of the best! RIP RV.


I don't know if I should put my foot "in it" or not? Not even sure whether "in it" is my mouth or the horse's $h!t? And I like, appreciate, and admire Larry "original" Smith very much for his many (MANY!) contributions to the hobby for many years.However, the color debate on the earlier brass era model T Fords has gone on for many decades, with a few factors never being fully proven and agreed upon. The 1913 model/style year model Ts, certainly, MOST of the earlier standard production ones were very dark blue body with matching dark blue wheels.
But there were some exceptions. Whether those exceptions were Ford factory or done somehow after-market is still debatable.

Like nearly all human endeavors, the antique automobile hobby has done many things very badly, and even downright WRONG! When I was still in high school, and getting into this hobby, I must have heard it a hundred times! "If you want to have one of the best restored cars? Buy the nicest original car you can get and completely restore it!"
Somehow, I instinctively knew that was WRONG WRONG WRONG! But who then was going to believe a fifteen year old kid?
In those days, there were literally hundreds of very nice truly original model Ts all across the country. What happened, of course, was that most of those truly original cars were not preserved as they should have been. Meanwhile, marginal original cars were parted out or left to continue rotting behind the garage instead of being restored as they should have been. Most of the model Ts I have restored were considered to be unrestorable when I got them.
Nearly fifty or more years ago, there were still a lot of nice very original brass era model Ts to look at and study. And around that time there was a lot of discussion in the hobby, at both national and local levels, about what was or was not "correct" for model Ts. In the days before Bruce McCalley and dozens of others spent thousands of hours going through era records and publishing articles in magazines or whole books based on real research? Most of what was "known" ("believed would be a much more correct word, but people then truly believed they actually "knew"!) about the model T was actually based upon faulty memories or oft repeated myths. Discussions about things like colors went on at local levels for years.
I had several great opportunities to be in on some of those discussions, and I paid close attention to them. On a few occasions, three specifically stick in my mind, three different very original early 1913 model T touring cars, were painted green. All three were basically untouched very original cars that had been well stored for a long time. All three should have been kept and driven as original cars, but sadly, all three were later sold and restored, destroying what they really had best to offer.
All three of those solid very original touring cars had some area (or more?) where the original upholstery was beginning to come apart, and reveal what was underneath. And what was underneath that upholstery hiding for (then) more than fifty years? Dark green paint.
The subject is still debatable. Maybe all three were special ordered, and stripped down "to the white" and repainted when new? Maybe all three were part of some special commercial order requiring a special color?
Personally, and statistically speaking, I find it difficult to believe that many could have had green buried under the upholstery unless they left the factory that way.
But, that is me.

We KNOW very dark blue is correct for a true 1913. Paint green at your own risk.