Y Code Restoration Files: 1972 dog dish hubcaps

                                                                        By: Patrick Smith

   In the concourse restoration realm, close doesn't count. The right parts have to be used to complete your car. For those of you getting your PHS sales invoice from Jim Mattison or his son, you can look at the options part of the invoice to see what wheels, hubcaps or tires were supplied when new. The sales invoice isn't a build sheet. It's  like  a receipt the shipping company uses to have lot guys sign off for receipt of delivery. So what they show are the billable options each car had. It doesn't show standard equipment which is what a dealership MSRP sticker does.

The 1972 dog dish hubcap was a one year only deal for LeMans and GTO. 1971 and 1973 were completely different.
Finding these won't be a cake walk. Part number is 488630.

   If you see Rally II RPO code  on the sheet, you know that car got Rally II wheels as optional equipment. What if your sheet has no code at all for wheels? Then you got the standard issue steel wheel with dogdish hubcaps for equipment. While there is a build sheet code for that wheel, there isn't an RPO code as it was standard equipment, not optional. What did these wheels and hubcaps look like in 1972? Interesting question and not as straight forward an answer as we'd  think.

This is how a dressed to kill GTO looks with dog dishes.

   The 1972 GTO and Lemans dog dish hubcap changed from 1971's design to a simple baby moon style with an embossed circle around the Pontiac arrowhead. This is quite different to the 1973 standard hubcap which had an even larger convex curve and no inner embossed circle; just a plain arrowhead. I can show you a close up of this style hubcap on a stunning GTO that was restored and later on sold by Mecum Auctions. You'll notice the steel wheel was painted gloss black. That was the default wheel color. Only a few paint codes got their wheels body color. Strangely, Cardinal Red wasn't one of them!
 

   The part number for these standard hubcaps was 488630. While not super pricey yet, no one is reproducing them and surviving stock is limited. A member of maxperf forums has been upgrading his 1972 455 HO LeMans when he took it to a major show and learned he actually had incorrect hubcaps on his car. He was a little surprised how long it took to scare up a complete set of show worthy ones. He was buying them individually from the best supply he could find. He has finished the job now.

As seen here even when it doesn't look right, Pontiac Division persevered with black steel wheels on a
color contrasting car like Cardinal Red unlike Chrysler who color matched the wheels to body color.

  Speaking of which, what color should those steel wheels be when you go to paint them? According to Pontiac, only a few paint codes were body color when it came to the wheels. The default color was Starlight Black. There were few exceptions to the rule: they were Laurentian and Wilderness Green. Shown above is a 1972 LeMans Sport finished in Cardinal Red with dog dish hubcaps.
   As we come across more Y Code GTOs, LeMans or even a survivor LeMans with those wheels we will add a pic here to illustrate the appearance.
   * Article (c) 2016 by Patrick Smith images by PHS  Y Code Registry except image b Mecum Auctions LLC and image c PHS MEDIA ARCHIVES.