Detroit was aware of the Day Two cars by the mid 60s.
Basically, a Day Two car was born when a buyer yanked the stock wheels off his brand-new car and added mag wheels.
The Big Three countered by offering ‘mag-like’ wheel covers as an option, so here are five solid examples.
Jerry Sutherland
Chevelle came into its own as a real-deal muscle car in 1965 when the SS 396 ZI6 hit the streets.
That option turned the humble, mid-sized Chevelle into a street thug overnight. They only sold 201 of these big-block Chevelles because they weren’t advertised–plus they were introduced mid-year. Chevy did offer a mag wheel-like option for these untamed beasts to give it a factory Day 2 vibe.
Dodge introduced the Coronet R/T option in 1967.
This car only came with two engines—the standard 440 big-block and the monster 426 hemi option. Mopar was playing with a sleeper look in ’67, so the R/T looked like something your aunt would drive…apart from the louvered hood. Dodge got ahead of the Day Two guys with a mag-like wheel cover, but most buyers headed straight to real-deal mag wheels.
The ’67 Coronet RT had a little brother back in 1967 in the form of the Dart GTS.
The GTS had a 383 big-block that barely fit under the A-body’s hood. It was tight—so tight you couldn’t get power steering, thus every day was a workout behind the wheel of a GTS. The only built 457 of these bad boys and yes—there was a mag-like wheel cover option.
They built many, many 1967 Chevy Impalas in 1967, but very few of them were SS 427 models. In fact, Chevy built just over 2000 of these monsters—a small percentage of the 575,500 Impalas produced in 1967.
The big-block 427 was rated at 385 horsepower and produced a whopping 460 foot-pounds of torque. This big Impala was built for guys who wanted the knock-out punch of a muscle car with the ride of a Cadillac. Chevy also gave buyers the fake-mag wheel cover option to drive home the muscle car Day 2 look.
The 1973 Pontiac Formula 400 was a smog-era muscle car, so it had nowhere near the raw power of the pre-smog era muscle cars.
Despite the boat anchor emissions laws, the Formula 400 was a good-looking car. The massive hood scoops told you this wasn’t a barebones Firebird. This was a low compression car, so the 400 cubic inch V-8 pumped out 235 horses. That wasn’t enough to win any stoplight wars with older muscle cars, but it was enough to qualify as quick by ’73 standards. That’s why the 1973 Pontiac Formula 400s came equipped with a 70s version of a Day One mag wheel.
The car builders didn’t stop the Day Two mag wheel trend with buyers. In fact, many of these fake mag wheels were yanked off just as fast as a non-mag look wheel cover.
That’s why these factory mag-like wheel covers are so rare 60 years later.
Jerry Sutherland
By: Jerry Sutherland
Jerry Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer with a primary focus on the collector car hobby. His work has been published in many outlets and publications, including the National Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Regina Leader-Post, Vancouver Sun and The Truth About Cars. He is also a regular contributor to Auto Roundup Publications.
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