I was just looking at a build sheet on a 69 Parisienne that was built with option code P91: G70-15 Redline tires. The car has an original redline spare in the trunk on a rally wheel. Does anyone know if you automatically got rally wheels with the 15" tire or was it the other way around (you got 15" tires with the rally wheel option)? The build sheet does not mention rally wheels and the dealer brochure doesn't even list the 15" tire.
I know you could get 15" wheels on a 69 full size Pontiac without having the rally wheel. My 69 427 Grande Parisienne had disc brakes (thus had to have 15" wheels) and it had full wheel covers on plain black steel rims.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
I hope "North" sees this post as he has the ordering book. I wonder if only the Grande had the wheel covers for 15" or if you could get them on a Parisienne too?
The stem code on those 15" disc brake rims would be YZ . There was a full set on a 69 Grande Parisienne 4 dr L36 427 parts car a buddy had stored at my place years ago . Powertrain went to complete a 69 SS427 he was building , and I ended up with the rims. YZ rims are not that easy to find these days
-- Edited by Howmac on Wednesday 29th of March 2023 07:16:11 AM
I'm confused by this car's VVS sheet as there is no mention of the rallys yet the car is unrestored, has 20000 miles and is an L36 427 4 speed bench seat car.
Could this car have come with just caps? That really adds to the sleeper vibe if it did.
1970 Parisiennes came with P01 full wheelcovers as newly standard. 15" wheels became standard on all, even on drum brake cars.
1969 Parisiennes still came with base dog-dish caps. 14" wheels were base with drums brakes (even 427s) while 15" (not Rally wheels) were included with disk brakes. I would think that any car with base caps in '69 still used the same base dog-dish caps with 15" wheels as well (they fit). Only when you ordered wheel covers did you get that 15" style shown, or else they came standard on disk brake Grande Parisienne, Grande Safari & 2+2 models.
Rally Wheels became a standalone option for 1968, drums or disc brake versions; all were 15x6" on the B-body line. Same in '69. In '70 they were standard on the 2+2 (along with disc brakes) and were optional on all others whether disc or drum brakes.
As I understand it.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
Yes, I forgot to mention I also parted out a very original 427 1969 convertible with drum brakes. It had red 14" wheels, so clearly it must have had dog dish caps off the assembly line.
And the 68 small block disc brake car I parted out that did not have the rally wheel option had black rally wheels under the full wheel covers.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Yes, I forgot to mention I also parted out a very original 427 1969 convertible with drum brakes. It had red 14" wheels, so clearly it must have had dog dish caps off the assembly line.
And the 68 small block disc brake car I parted out that did not have the rally wheel option had black rally wheels under the full wheel covers.
If it had Rally Wheels under the wheelcovers then they could hide under wheelcovers undetected. They would not work with the base dogdish cap as they don't have the retention lugs on the center area of the wheel. That is why there are specific police caps for Chevy Rally Wheels. Interesting.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
The guys at VVS would read the info off of a microfiche negative. Sometimes the negative would not be straight, sometimes the listing would not be straight, sometimes the options would run over a line ( say there was 10 spaces on a line, this particular car may have 11, so it would be on the next line, possibly missed), sometimes there would be a bend in the negative, the options weren't ALWAYS in chronological order...... Different plants - some options were stock and another plant it would show as an option. There are a bunch of reasons, more than I can remember. I have over 400 vehicle option lists I saved.
Before it was VVS, it was just 2 guys who did it as a service to customers. I had Corvettes for years and these 2 guys were not all that familiar with Vettes. So they has asked me a few times for help, mostly for NCRS type questions that I was usually able to answer
Here is a 1968 B Body (Chev) loaded wagon with disc brakes . Has the body coloured 15" rally wheels with full disc wheel covers
-- Edited by Howmac on Thursday 30th of March 2023 03:59:50 PM
It's interesting that the wheels are body colour. The disc brake 68 Parisienne I parted out around 1975 had full wheel covers and black rally wheels under them. I wonder why the Chevy has body colour rims? It didn't have dog dish caps because they don't fit rallys. And the rallys didn't come body colour from GM when they had rings and centre caps from the factory, they were always that silver rally wheel colour. We sure learn to never say never.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Back when I lived in Ancaster as a kid there was a classmate's mother who drove a '70 Chevy Townsman. It was Astro Blue with base hubcaps. I do recall blue Rally Wheels on the car, but where it gets foggy is whether the base caps were on it at the same time. They may have had a spare set of wheels with snow tires and the caps may not have been on them. Maybe that is why they had no caps on the back wheels. I may have in my mind incorrectly settled on the 2 being together at the same time. This was so long go that the car was replaced with a new '76 Aspen wagon.
Rally Wheels came on all '67s with disc brakes, and from what I have seen, continued for a time into '68 in Canada as witnessed by wheel part #s in the Beaumont Parts Book, where they would say "carries through job # xxxx", then offer a superseded part #. I don't have the manual handy to verify. Remember in '68 they were the early 4-piston type brakes that needed wheel clearance. Perhaps with disc brakes if you didn't officially specify ZJ7 Rally Wheels they may have just gone with a wheelcover over top of a plain black rally wheel. They still had to clear the calipers after all. In '67 the special wheel (Rally) was a way to showcase the new and slightly expensive disc brakes. For '68 there were more disc brake adopters, and the newness was last year's news. They didn't need to showcase them and started to charge separately for Rally Wheels in '68. They even started to offer drum brake versions (don't buy them by mistake for your disc brake car).
By '69 the disc brake option was cheaper, simplified, and did not (officially) carry Rally Wheels. Wagons would have carried h.d. wheels on the big cars, which may have translated into ghost 15x6 Rally Wheels. Still, they would mention something about wheelcovers if they were included with disc brake. There would have been a protocol and I would love to know what it was.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
I don't know if there was a 15 inch rally wheel option for the 69 2+2. I suspect that the common rim is the same one used on my 69 Caprice and my 69 Kingswood, both of which came with disc brakes. This was a 15 inch rim which accepted a full wheel cover or a dog dish cap.