Unusually filigree
10/25/2024
If you've been following my morning blog posts for a while, you'll know that I have a penchant for making unusual modifications to classic cars. This includes: wire wheels on cars that shouldn't actually have wire wheels. For example, the "Pagoda" from Mercedes-Benz. I think we agree on this point.
Somehow, instead of genuine classic elegance, they only lend the unobtrusive convertible their cramped, over-emphasized misunderstanding of those Excalibur nostalgia coaches from the eighties. And yet I can't help but respect the owner for his courage and independence. How many others would have simply bolted on "baroque rims"?
Even the '55 Ford Thunderbird looks somehow more honest with the factory-fitted hubcaps, which only imitate the filigree wheelwork, than with real wire wheels. Incidentally, both cars were auctioned exactly like this on bringatrailer.com.
"Yes, yes, those uncultured Americans have no taste," some people might say. However, we Western Europeans were no better in the past. There was this AMS reader from Augsburg, for example, who actually bolted 15-inch spoke wheels onto his Isabella TS in 1958. Even Burkard Bovensiepen fitted the BMW 2000 CS Alpina with the wiry wheels on request in 1967 - from Borrani, after all.
In the last two cases, the conversion would therefore even be "historically correct" and perfectly compatible with the H license plate. But whether anyone will ever dare to do it again is another question. I think I need an Isabella...
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