AMT 55 Vette wheels

[Painted Black]

The mag wheels in this kit are quite different, does anyone know if there is a prototype wheel that matches them?

Thanks

Edited August 7, 2021 by Painted Black

[Mark]

There is a 1:1 wheel, but I don't know who made them.  I haven't seen many of these, but all of them were wider than the Corvette wheels.  All were used as rear wheels on dragsters or funny cars, and the spoke areas were gold.  The gold would lead me to believe these are magnesium wheels, as many of those received treatments that resulted in the gold color.

The AMT '71 Thunderbird kit has similar wheels also.

[Robberbaron]

On 8/7/2021 at 4:27 PM, Mark said:

There is a 1:1 wheel, but I don't know who made them.  I haven't seen many of these, but all of them were wider than the Corvette wheels.  All were used as rear wheels on dragsters or funny cars, and the spoke areas were gold.  The gold would lead me to believe these are magnesium wheels, as many of those received treatments that resulted in the gold color.

The AMT '71 Thunderbird kit has similar wheels also.

I think they most closely resemble the American Racing S2 model:

These were 2-piece, bolt together magnesium, 16" x 10", race only. As Mark said, they were really only used on the rear of drag cars, and were never too common.  Definitely not something anyone would bolt onto a '71 T-bird, or even a street driven Corvette.

Spoke design is similar to the more common  model 200S "Daisy" wheels, which were one piece aluminum without the perimeter bolts:

I will say this: the spokes on the AMT wheels don't really have the "Coke bottle" shape like the S2, so I'm not 100% certain that those are what AMT was replicating. But I don't know of any other vintage wheels that had those perimeter bolts like that.

There's a chance that there was some other oddball wheel out there that they were trying to depict.  If you look through vintage '60s and '70s wheel catalogs, you'll see all sorts of oddball wheel designs that have been lost to time.  Good site if you want to fall down a rabbit hole:

https://vintagewheelcatalogs.com/

[Painted Black]

I think you have got it right on the dot, those S2 wheels are the perfect match. Thanks

[Casey]

I don't think they are American Racing S2 wheels, for the reason Robert pointed out above, but they are American (Racing) wheels, at least according to AMT's box: