THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 3, 1996 TAG: 9606010010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: 55 lines
Automobile hub designs are among the jazzier products of today's car factories. Indeed, they have been for quite a while.
Hub caps, to use that old term loosely, have become far more than just outsize metal buttons to cover up the lug nuts that fasten the wheels to the axles. Some of the gleaming wheel centers are quite intricate, some sport a complex of radiating wires, some have a more massive look, a silver muscularity. Some have the fastening nuts in full view - and, again, gleaming.
However, there are certain hub designs that, ever since I began taking close notice, make me a little nervous. Or uncomfortable. Or something.
A great many of the ornamental hubs have spoke-like patterns, perhaps delicate, perhaps massive. There may be many such spokes, or just a few. Perhaps by use of artistic flutes and curves, the spokes are just stylized hints. Whatever. And all very snappy.
Where this style gets into trouble with me is in those cases where the spokes don't go straight out to the edge, but have a slant. This presents a pinwheel effect, suggesting motion even when everything is stock-still.
Very sly, very ``with it.''
One day not long ago, I impulsively decided to take a closer look at those slanted-spoke wheel covers - on our own car in the first instance. What I became curious about was how the direction of the spokes' slant on one side of the car compared with the appearance of the spokes on the other side.
And what I found was a curious difference - understandable, but a difference in appearance all the same.
From a position on the driver's side of our car, I saw that the artistic spokes, along the top portion of the wheel covers, were pointing forward. That is, toward the front of the vehicle. But when I moved to the other side of the car, I could see that the spokes along the top of the wheels on that side were pointing to the rear.
What this obviously means is that all the wheel covers produced for this model car came out of the stamping machinery as look-alikes.
In recent weeks, I've checked lots and lots of cars, and the same thing is true of a great variety of makes on which the slanted-spoke conformation is used. There may very well be exceptions that I didn't come across, (in fact, early on I thought I saw one model with the spokes pointed forward on both sides, but my glimpse was fleeting).
The practical reasons for the manufacturing procedure would seem obvious: It's cheaper to make all the wheel centers alike. This also ensures easy wheel interchangeability down the line. And if there are any aerodynamic consequences, they would hardly be noticeable.
Besides, who's to notice this little offense against symmetry?
Who can see both sides of a car at the same time? And who in the world would mosey around parking lots, circling certain smartly ornamented automobiles, just to check? MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk. by CNB