Let's start off with the most common pieces of information you can receive on Hubcaps : Hubcaps are also known as Wheel Covers. It covers the center part of the wheel as well as some of the outer part. Most cars with steel wheels have Hubcaps on them & those cover the entire wheel. The cars that have the OEM Alloy Wheels have smaller version of Hubcaps , they're called Center Caps. Regardless of what you call it, a Hubcap / Wheel Cover is an accessory that you can purchase to cover your steel wheel & even your spare sometimes.
If you were around when the first Hubcaps were around, then you probably know that they were called either dust caps or grease caps. These specific caps were threaded onto the center part on the wood, steel, or wire wheel. Pre-1915, most Hubcaps were made out of brass that was nickel plated. In the 1920s, they started making the Hubcaps out of Aluminum. If you need one of those old Grease caps like Houk, Phelps, Budd, & even Stewart, you should prepare for the ultimate scavenger hunt because they are really hard to find.
Between 1927 and 1928, the very first snap-on center caps were being made for wire wheels. After around 1932, almost every car had that snap-on center cap on the middle of their wheels - whether they were wire, steel, or even wood wheels. The wire wheel center caps that were manufactured in the 30s had something like a spring-loaded retention clip system that was used on a lot of Hubcaps & even the center caps that we use today. The steel wheels in the 1930s had the same retention clips, but they were mounted to the wheel that were snapped into a lip behind of the actual cap.
The wood wheels were manufactured as a special option. The center caps that were on the wood wheels had a big chrome base that was mushroomed up to some other chrome base that was smaller & had the emblem on the face. Something called the "stem" up to the second base was almost always painted black to make it seem like the top base was floating somehow. All these caps were usually made of either brass, steel, or even aluminum.
When 1935 "finally" rolled around; that's when they first started manufacturing the full Hubcaps to fit the entire steel wheel - except for a small part around the outer lip of the wheel. There was a manufacturer named Cord & they made the Chrome Hubcaps that had somewhat of a smooth top & some holes on the side. There was another producer named Hudson & they made the Hubcaps with a flat lip halfway to the middle; the center would usually say "Hudson", "Hudson Eight", or even "Terraplane".
When they started producing the pressed steel rims, they started making Hubcaps a little bigger so they can cover the lug nuts that were used to mount the steel wheels. These were the Hubcaps that were made of either chrome-plated material or steel.
On mostly all Hubcaps , you can see a simple trademark in the middle of it that symbolizes the manufacturer who produced the hubcap. The only thing with Hubcaps is that when you drive over hard roads or old streets, they more bumpy it is, the more prone your Hubcaps are to fall off. Center caps are not known to fall off because they're more secure inside the Aluminum Rims.
