1/Line wheel Design
The Sombrero wheel
Objective
If you were making a list of true OG hubcap for customs and hot rods, the Cadillac ‘Sombrero’ hubcap would have to be one of them.
Our client wanted a wheel that evoked the sombrero cap for his custom-styled homage roadster.
A start
We 3D scanned an original 15 inch sombrero hubcap provided by the client, extracted the primary profiles, then scaled them up to fit a 16 inch diameter wheel.
A design
The resulting wheel face looks the part, but we needed a way to cover up the hub and lug nuts, since the purpose of the original hubcap, of course, is to cover those. Enter the spinner cap!
Not spinning our wheels
We designed a spinner cap to thread onto the wheel face, covering the hub and lugs with ease. And we included a recess sized for the original Cadillac emblem to really complete the look.
make chips
To really maximize the impact of the sombrero look we couldn’t just have a wheel face installed in a standard barrel. The profile had to reach all the way to the edges of the wheel. To achieve this, we machined the lip, bead seat, and drop center into the front half of the wheel. We milled down a full forged barrel for each wheel to allow us to mate the rear half of the wheel to the front and welded them together.
photo finish
Once the wheels were machined and assembled, they were polished to a mirror finish, and the barrels painted to match the car. A tiny edge of paint on the outside lip helps the illusion of a hubcap on a steel wheel.
Tools & Technologies
- Artec Eva 3D scanners
- Reverse Engineering Software
- CAD Software
Fabrication Process
- Tig welding
- 3-axis CNC milling
Equipment & Hardware
