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5S003 Under Restoration    (Updated: 8/10/13)


Tires & Wheels


The left image below is a close up of a 5.5 x 15 KH rim, dated 12/62, the unique area on these rims are the four "eyelets". Put your fingertip in each one, they are all different openings, none are the same. Why? Never got a good answer from anyone, but this is a unique trait to the wheels used on 427 Galaxies, police cars, taxicabs (I am told) and the early to mid 1965 GT350's. These were placed on a rotating assembly when painted, and this will be replicated on the restoration of 5S003. Note the factory run of the paint below the eyelet/opening.

The right image below shoes the K-H and the FoMoCo logo on the raised nubs, usually next to each other but not always. Some rims may not have this or the stamping is light and filled with several repaints. The rims were painted black first the shot from the front only with one of the most difficult colors to replicate and there appears to be a couple different shades of the color "Champagne".

KH rim   KH rim


The back of the KH rim (left photo below) was flat black with a little "CHAMPAGNE" frosting through from the eyelets when painted from the front. The 5.5 x 15 KH center sections were welded whereas the extremely rare 6 x 15 KH rims, which were used perhaps as a specific production run to Shelby American only, were riveted and were found on the mid 1965 GT350 production cars through the first 252 produced "carry over" 1966 GT350's. These beautiful carry over GT350's have their own web site and can be found in our "links" page. The right photo below shows the stamping inside the rim.

KH rim   KH rim


Craig Conley has restored the most Cragars of anyone in the U.S. over 2,000 rims in 20 plus years. In all this time, he has run across three prototype Cragars. The centercaps had the Cragar S/S centers milled off, since the CS production centercaps were not in production yet. 5S003 is the only car ever photographed at Shelby American with these unique rims, we know they made at least 4 or 5 of these, but so far only 3 have surfaced in all these years. There are several differences, mainly the windows/openings are smaller in size, due to the center hubs being larger to accommodate varying bolt patterns. When Shelby American placed a large order for these rims, a newer smaller center hub was used for the Ford bolt pattern. The center cap area is thicker on the prototype rim and there is no S1MS part number on the back of one of the spokes. In total, the prototype Cragars have 5 differences when compared to the production Cragar rim. When 003 is shown at the high caliber shows it will be wearing the prototype Cragars on the passenger side and the KH steel rims on the drivers side, all the rims will be mounted with original (non DOT) Goodyear Power Cushion tires. When the car is driven, a modern set of Goodyears will be mounted to production GT350 Cragars and original KH rims.

The two photos below are front and rear of a prototype Cragar:

Prototype Cragars   Prototype Cragars

The next two photos are front and rear of a regular production Cragar mounted on an original Goodyear Bluedot tire:

Production Cragars   Production Cragars


Rarer than the Goodyear Bluedots are the precursor to the bluedot, the Goodyear non DOT Power Cushion 7.75 x 15 tires. Factory photos at Venice show the very first Mustangs sent to be transformed into GT350's used these tires for "slave" wheels, not sure why other than to bring the cars to Shelby American on the 5.5" x 15" KH rims. Blown up photos of 5S003 show this tire on the car during it's time at Shelby American. The Goodyear on the right in the photo below is NOS, and will be used as the spare on the package tray. These five Goodyears cost as much as two new GT350's did in 1965. No other 65 GT350's were photographed or most likely ever sold before the Bluedots were produced. If you see 5S003 with these tires at a show in 2014, look at them closely as you will probably never see a set like this again.

Goodyear Power Cushion

Pictured below are the front (left photo) and back of a Goodyear non DOT Power Cushion 7.75 x 15 tire:

Goodyear Power Cushion   Goodyear Power Cushion




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