Body colored painted rallies on a 1968 Z/28 ???

[hubleyman]

Hello Gents (and Ladies too),

I was just reading one of the recent topics about wheel painting and it triggered a long lost memory that I've always been curious about.

Back in the late seventies, a friend of mine owned a low mileage original paint 1968 non-RS Z/28 that had a dash/dash paint code and was painted Sky Blue / Carolina Blue (with black interior). He was not very knowledgable about cars and wasn't even sure it was a real Z/28 at the time because it only had 302 emblems on the front fenders.... I went through it very thoroughly and it truely was a mint, unmolested, correct born with everything matching numbers car. It still had the factory original bias ply tires with a mint, never touched the ground spare tire.

The strange part is the original rally wheels (15 x 6) were painted body color as well and looked as if they came that way from the factory.

My questions is... has anyone else ever seen such a non-standard practice for painting the wheels done by the factory? I realize that the rims could have been painted by anyone at anytime, from the selling dealer down to the previous owner before my friend, but I've always wondered what if?? Whomever did the wheel painting would have had to remove all five tires to do such a nice detailed job. Since the car was a custom paint color instead of standard, would it have been possible the factory custom painted the wheels as well?

FYI, a few years later, another friend of mine purchased this Z/28 and couldn't stand the girly-blue, so he stripped it and painted it black instead and installed a set of 15 x 8 Torque Thrusts I sold him that came off my very first Corvette...... Bet the current owner (maybe still here in Northern Ca) doesn't even know his car was born baby blue...

So there you have it, inquiring minds want to know... Charlie