Hubcap

Grease caps of the wire wheel brands such as Houk, Hayes, Frayer, Dayton, Buffalo, House, Phelps, Pasco, Rudge Whitworth, Budd, and Stewart are some of the hardest to find.

[citation needed] Cord made a plain chrome wheel cover that had a smooth top and holes in the side.

While the knock-off spinner resembles an early hubcap, its threads also retain the wheel itself, in lieu of lug nuts.

[6] An option on some cars was a chrome-plated trim ring that clipped onto the outer rim of the wheel, in addition to the center hubcap.

The first domestic automobile to use a full plastic wheel cover was the Chevy Monza which featured a "wind blade" design and came in several colors.

Even modern aluminum alloy wheels generally use small removable center caps, similar in size to the earliest hubcaps.

[9][10] Part of the lore of hubcaps is that on bad roads they have a tendency of falling off due to hitting a bump.

A kit consisting of spare zip ties, a pair of cutting pliers, and latex gloves allow a trim thus secured to be removed easily in the event of a tire puncture.

Two very desirable wheel covers were those of the 1950 Cadillac[13] (called the "Sombrero") and that of the 1953 to 1955 Oldsmobile, which resembled a huge, three-tined spinner.

Aftermarket suppliers included the "Mooneyes" brand (named after the firm's founder Dean Moon) hubcaps and wheel covers that were some of the first independently offered for hot rods and custom cars.

Commonly made from aluminum, they are designed to distribute airflow to the brakes, thereby generating downforce depending on the shape.

At the Turkish Grand Prix, the rear shrouds were also adopted by Toyota and Toro Rosso and thus their use became widespread for all teams.

Prior to being banned from the 1994 PPG Indy Car World Series, wheel shrouds were popular on superspeedways until Team Penske revealed that those covers could reduce drag by 2.5%.

To get around the ban, Ferrari used a detachable integral aero device made from the same magnesium material as the wheel itself, which consisted of double concentric rings of different diameters.

An example is the Rolls-Royce whose hubcap centers are weighted and mounted to revolve independently of the wheel rotation, thus the RR logo can be read while the vehicle is in motion.

[20] Non-rotating hubcaps with advertisements may be found on race cars, taxis, commercial vehicles, industrial machinery, buses, and golf carts.