sixpackrt

Just wondering what the difference is between all the 87-91 GTA diamond spoke rims. From what I have heard, some rims offset different than the others as far as front to back. Do all years have the same offset combination or do some years actually have the same offset all the way around? Please let me know if you have any info. My GTA does not have the correct rims so I need to know what to look for. Please reply to (sixpackrt@Hotmail.com) thanks, Bret Halvorson

okfoz

There were a few variations of the Gold GTA Wheels.
Some of the 1987 wheels were slightly different in casting than the 88-92, Although not obvious to the untrained eye, if you look at the attached pic there is a little pocket where the spoke meets the rim... The later 88-92 cars do not have this little pocket.

Also there were some minor color changes through the series, Some were a brighter gold in color... I do not remember which year has what tho...

For the most part look for 4 rims from the same year, as they should match.

Also to answer your question about the Offset- All 16" rims had different offsets for the front wheels and rear wheel... Front wheels will work on the rear, However the rear wheels do not work on the front.

John

Klortho

Actually, that's backwards John, the '87 rims did not have the dimple. That started in '88 and went through '92.

okfoz

You are probably correct...

I will just bone it up to my dyslexia

Sorry

John

MNformula350

iTrader: (2)

And for the record they ARE NOT exclusivley GTA wheels! They were available on all 87-92 Trans Am's, standard on all 87-92 GTA's, 91-92 Trans Am's and 91-92 Formula's with the 350 and T-Tops.

Sorry, it just irritates when they are referred to as GTA only wheels instead of diamond spoke wheels.

Edit: I forgot they were also available on 86 T/A's as well

Agent13

iTrader: (6)

They were available on '86 T-Top Trans Am's also.

Guest

They were not available in 1985.

Rebelhick

Not all 86's could get them. I always thought they were available in late 86. Is this correct?

Guest

So the story goes. I dont know the month, or if anyone else knows that.

navy02ws6

Does this inability of rotating tires apply to the black lace GTA-style stock wheels on my 1991 T/A as well?

Guest

If they are 16's, yes. Front and rear offsets are different so the rears have to stay on the rear unless you want them to rub the strut up front.

PonchoHoncho

My wife has chrome rims on her car, yet she also has an inability to rotate tires.....women...go figure

Mr. TurboTA

Guys,
Gold was used on GTAs, while the other colors were used on Trans Ams and latter, Formulas.
So, when you see gold wheels, they are off GTAs, which is why everyone calls them GTA wheels.
The back of the wheels will state either front or rear only, even though you can pretty much put them either on the front or not. This will not always work on every car, but some.
As for putting these wheels on second gen cars, they work very nice! I have them on my '81 Trans Am.

Hope this helps,

George

okfoz

Mr Turbo Trans Am...

For the first time I have to disagree with you.

The Gold "GTA" Rims were available on the Trans am in 1991 & 1992. This contributed to much confusion in Magazine articles who often called Trans AM Convertables, GTA convertables because of the Golden Rims.

--------------------

The BLACK Cross-lace rims in 1987 were ONLY avialable on Trans Ams that Ordered the WS6 package, a 305 or 350 and Automatic Transmission. IF you ordered a Trans Am in 1987 and opted for a 305 TPI and the M5 transmission, ot the LG4 you got the Formula Wheels on the T/A.

In 1988 however there were several wheel options on the T/A, including possibly the Formula Rims, and then all of the colored Spoke rims, such as Red, White, Silver, Black etc.

Mr. TurboTA

Well Okfoz!
I do learn something new each day!
I never knew about the gold being availible on regular Trans Ams!
But, all my 1991 Product books, show that the gold is still just used on GTAs. I admit, I have never paid attention to the wheels on regular Trans Ams. If they were used, it was after the Product Book came out. I may have to check my Car Dis. Bullitins.
However, my 1992 Fleet Book (I have yet to add a 1992 Product Book to my collection) shows the gold for both the Trans Am and the GTA.
Thanks for informing me!

Shot down a notch,

George

shr00m

iTrader: (2)

Here's my 92, stock with gold.. Just for proof.. I've got my spid sheet too.

okfoz

G,
I was reading my stuff, and your correct the 1991 Pontiac Product Book lists the Trans Am with Charcoal, and the GTA with Gold...

Whats really funny is on page 56 of the 1991 sales Brochure shows a Gray Trans Am with Gold Wheels But a few more pages it states Trans AM wheel Spoked "Charcoal" Standard...

Possibly used with particular colors I don't know... due to lack of info.

John

stitchop

Nice Vert Firebird, beautiful!!! Love the wheels.

shr00m

iTrader: (2)

Thanks. Here's the new ones. Pretty close match, just bigger. Do a search under my user name for info..

Kevin D.

FrankieRider2

I have to agree with okfoz here at least for 1991. I don't have a lot of info to back anything up with, but what he says makes sense. As usual.

My '92 new car pricing source lists the gold wheels as standard on Trans Am convertibles with beige tops and the 52P gold wheels are listed on the 1992 order sheet as available for the coupe T/A in any guise.

Trans It

According to the 1991 Pontiac Car Distribution Bulletin sheet on "Color Keyed Standard Items", the "Gold Diamond Spoke" wheels were offered on cars with beige top/camel interior, and "Charcoal Diamond Spoke" wheels came on cars equipped with black top/black or gray interiors. Decal color (either gold or gray), were also coordinated with wheel, interior/top choices. This sheet appears to just cover the 'verts.

I originally tried to get a blue T/A vert with gold wheels in '91, but couldn't order it that way. So I went with the red/camel scheme to get the gold wheels.

Guest

George... tsk tsk tsk.

Remember this?

Sitting next to your car, to the left in this pic, was a green TA vert with gold GTA wheels. The car was all original, and quite nice I might add. It was a 91 or 92, I would have to do some research to find out but it was one of the 3 trophies awarded for our class.

Mr. TurboTA

Boy Guys!
I never said I know everything about these cars, just some of everything!
There are lots of years that I don't know alot about.
As for the gold wheels on non GTAs, since I don't own a '91-92 Trans Am, I wasn't aware of the use of gold Diamond Spoke wheels on them.
I have a huge collection of Pontiac literature, but I don't spend my waking hours reading every line in them.
But, as long as I can get you all to slam me, this stuff will come out.
Yes, I remember that convertible Trans Am, it was a beautiful car.
But that year, I spent most of my time selling in the swap meet, and didn't get around to really look at the cars.
Funny though, my picture of my car has a black car sitting next to my car!

George

okfoz

But we love you George, you have to realize that if we didn't care we would not pick on you...

Besides, what do you mean you have more important things to do than go over your literature???

John

Mr. TurboTA

Geez okfoz!
Yesterday was Valentine's day, and you wait for today to tell me that you guys love me?
Ha!
What is more important than reading every bit of my literature?
Let's see.......
Go thru about 100 boxes still, and tryin to find a place to put all that away! In the exact place, in order.
Finish organizing all 5 of my storage sheds, and get them in order.
Go thru all my cabinets, and put all that good stuff away, in order.
Slap together the bottom end of my Ram Air IV motor, so I can get ready to put in into my 1970 Trans Am.
Put away all that diecast I have been buying, in the glass display cases, and in boxes to store, after adding them to my catalog.
There are tons of other stuff to do, but these are the main ones.
Heck, everyday, I find things that I forgot I have!
I just found the clear 8 and 1/2 by 11 decal for the 1989 Firebird XS, that the dealership put onto one of the windows, showing customers the price of the car, with the savings. I had three of them, but just sold one to my friend in New Mexico.
Hard to take a picture of it, since it is just like Pontiac NOS decals, with a protective covering on it. If you hold it up to the light, you can read it better.
I also dug out abunch of photos that I took, including alot of shots of cars at the dealerships back then, alot of Firebird and concept cars, that I took at the auto shows, as well as Birds from SEMA. I also dug out my shots of Billboard ads that I took.
Got to get them together, origanize them by year, go scan them, put them onto CDs, and put them up on some webpages, and post them, so you all can see.
Hey! Why don't you come out and help me?
TADan came out, but spent over 8 hours just looking thru some of my stuff, and he even filmed it! If only I could have gotten him to work.

Keeping busy,

George

okfoz

If you want, just box up those 1983 Firebird 1:16 kits and ship it over here to get it out of your way

John

TJBaker

And at least in my case they came when not expected!

In November 1985 I factory ordered my first brand new car, a 1986 fully loaded TA. I had an 82 TA that I had bought "off the lot" but wanted to order my own. On my order was specified what was essentially the standard wheel for WS6, what they called a '16" high tech turbo aluminum' wheel. Even though it was standard with WS6, my order with the dealership explicitly called for that wheel.

When the car showed up a couple months later it had these diamond spoked wheels! The dealership had not seen them before. The salesman asked me how I liked the car. I said "looks OK, but what the hell are those wheels doing on it?" He didn't know why it had them. He said to me "I don't what we can do about it". I said "you can swap them out with some other new TA on the lot or keep the car!" About then the sales manager comes by and after being advised of what was going on says "Whats on the order?" So they swapped them out and some car on the lot got some nice wheels. They probably looked better on some bright red or some such color TA than on my Silver vehicle. I'm not partial to flashy looking and with absolutely no other chrome or bright colors on my TA I just didn't care for the look of those diamond spoked wheels with their chrome rim. And no, I do not remember what color they were, except that they were NOT gold.


The window sticker makes no mention of any wheel replacing the standard WS6 wheel. We later found some "fine print" in the dealer literature that mentioned this wheel that was at that time not pictured in the wheel selections but came automatically when you also ordered three or four named options which I cannot remember. I got the car in like early March of 86, and to the best of my knowledge the dealership (in Westchester county NY) had never seen this diamond spoked wheel before, so I don't know about them being around in 85.

TJ Baker

Klortho

Believe it or not, these wheels were also available on the Formula's in 1987

Guest

Which, the ones in my pic?

Klortho

Yeah, I don't know what happened to the rest of the post, but those were the wheels for the '87 Formula's. They changed them in '88

Guest

Ahh, yea. Those were the first 16's, used on 84 TA anniv. models, 85-87 TA's. I think by 88 they were gone.

okfoz

THe History of the 16" Rim on 3rd Gen Firebirds.
1984 - N96 16" Rim introduced on 15th anniv car, they were painted white.

1985 - the N96 wheel that was on the 15'th anniversary car was now standard on WS6 equiped cars, the Colors were Silver (Nautral) or Gold.

1986 - Again the same N96 flat Silver (possibly Gold) wheel was standard on WS6 Trans Am's, Mid year, the Black Spoke "GTA" style wheel was introduced. It appears that the later 1986 Trans Am's with WS6, LB9 (TPI) & MX0 (Automatic) got the PW7 Diamond Spoke wheels, the LG4 cars still recieved the Silver flat 16" Rims.

1987 - The N96 16" WS6 Rim on from the Trans Am is used on the Formula, no matter the option. The Trans Am also would get the same N96 Rim when equiped with the LG4 OR the LB9/M5 option. If the car came with the L98, or LB9 and an Automatic, then they got the PW7 BLACK Diamond Spoke Rims. All GTA's got the GOLD PW7 Diamond spoke rims.

1988 The 16" Rims were changed to the Dish style, Again standard on the Formula. Some EARLY Trans Am's with the WS6 package also got the Dished Wheels, however most of them got the PW7 Diamond Spoke Wheels. This year there were several colors to choose from that were keyed to match the paint. IE, White, Red, Charcoal etc... If I read my information correctly, the cars with contrasting lower stripe were manditory Black Diamond Spoke PW7 Rims. The GTA again got Gold Rims only.

1989 - 1990 All Trans Am's got the PW7 Spoke Wheel, not sure about color, I know Black/Charcoal for sure... The GTA got the Gold Rims. The Standard Dished Formula rim was unchanged thru 1992.

1991 - 1992 The Black Spoke Rim was an option on ANY Formula, however it was manidtrory on All Formulas equiped with the L98 & CC1 options. The Trans Am got the Black Spoke rim standard, and the GTA got the Gold Spoke rim Standard. Some Trans Ams with certain colors also got the Golden Spoke Rim... Not sure which colors got Gold Rims.

In short:
84 - 87 Flat WS6 "Hi-Tech Turbo" rims Trans Am & Formula
88 - 92 Dish "Hi-Tech Turbo" rims on Formula (possibly on some 88 TA's)
86 - 90 Black Diamond Spoke Rim on Trans Am
91 - 92 Black Diamond Spoke rim on T/A & Optional on Formula
87 - 90 GOLD Diamond Spoke Rims (GTA ONLY)
91 - 92 GOLD Diamond Spoke RIms (GTA, & Optional on T/A)
88 - 89?? Color Diamond spoke rims on Trans Am.

John

Klortho

John, the wheels in '91-'92 were actually charcoal (they may also have black, but I thought the black ones were only on the GNX). I just picked up a set from a buddy off of his a '91 and they are charcoal. The car is white with grey interior, L98 car.

Not knocking what you put up, just trying to help get as much correct info documented as possible.

TTA 1387

The black 16" Diamond spoke wheels were also available on 87 Formulas. I almost bought one and there were two more on the lot that had them. Sticker also said it came with them as a no cost option if memory is correct.

They really looked a lot better than the Formula wheels. One was yellow and the other two were black.

okfoz

Klotho,
Your correct, they were actually Charcoal color, some years they called them Black, other years they call them Charcoal. I know the 87, 91 & 92 were definately Charcoal, the 88 lit calls them Black, But all in all I think for the most part they were Charcoal. The exception might be the years that they offered several colors, like in 1988.

TTA 1387
I have never seen an 87 Formula with the Charcoal Spoke Rims from the factory. I agree, I think they look a bit nicer than the N96 Rims especially when on a Black or Yellow car... I will have to look into this.

I have been tempted to buy a set of the PW7 Charcoal rims for my 2nd Yellow Formula for when I get it done.

John

Guest

What about silver? Or maybe its gray... some other light color like that. They were off an 88 TA. The car was blue with silver gfx. Guy I bought the wheels from said they were original, but who knows.

These:

Klortho

I'm wanting to say I read somewhere that you could get red color wheels in like 88-90.

madmax, those look like they were stripped down to the metal and then recleared, I like the way they look.

Guest

Not that I know of, they look painted, cleared, and original.

okfoz

I am not sure exactly what years, 88 for sure, but the Trans Am you could have gotten several colors, Red, White, Charcoal/Black, and obviously silver as seen above.

It could have been through 90.

TTA 1387

All I can say is it was very early production. It was when they first hit the lots. Maybe they were offering both wheels and then just went to the Formula wheel? I don't know but they were there

FrankieRider2

Another scenario would be that the wheels could have been swapped off another car onto the Formula... this did happen back in the day. My red GTA was sans its original rims when I purchased it due to this very reason.

It took a LONG time to wheedle this out of the dealership; in fact, they only told me the truth after I threatened to walk off due to their putting RONAL aftermarket wheels back on the car and then not wanting to warranty them.

They first tried to tell me that someone had stolen them off the car while it was on the lot.....

TTA 1387

That wasn't it as it was on the window sticker. I want to say it was a no cost option but I just can't remember.

FrankieRider2

Not disputing you there, Rob. I was going to go back and edit the post to take into consideration the specifics of your statement, but I had to run out afterwards and didn't get back to it.....

TTA 1387

No problem. If we had cell phones with camera's, I would have taken a picture. But the phones back then were like laptops today

Mark_ZZ3

Apart from the dimples and color choices, the method the rims were manufactured were also different. In 1987, the rims were two piece - hoop with a welded in centre section. 1988-up were one piece cast parts.

There is a third rims, but it was used exclusively in racing. A lighter weight version of the crosslaced rim. The way to tell these from the stock ones is by looking at the casting on the back. The regular ones were made in japan. The racing ones will hace C-P-C (Chev-Pontiac-Canada).

Mark.

Agent13

iTrader: (6)

My '86 T/A has Diamond Spoke Wheels in gold. They seem to have a more pale gold than what the GTA's used. Was there a difference in gold on the early wheels?

okfoz

The parts catalog shows the Gold Wheel for 1986...

I stand corrected.

John

GTA Jim

LOL.. Me too. The other thing that's getting common is calling them 'lace' wheels.. They're CROSS lace wheels. Just like shoe laces. If you criss-cross them, you should see the diamond pattern caused by crossing the laces

okfoz

Since were talking "Irritations" is the name "GTA Seats" they were called Ultima Seats or Articulating Seats. Also Lexan Tops, there made from Acrylic, it is plain as day on the sticker... Leximar is the company that made them and has nothing to do with "Lexan."

I feel better

FrankieRider2

82, yes, that photo of your car's wheel shows the difference. There was a definite difference in the shade of gold used on the 1986 and early 1987 GTA.... oops..... Diamond-Spoke rims. The color is much more of a champagne gold than the more commonly seen Gold Metallic that was used later on from mid 1987-1992. The wheels may have the same color code (52), but there is a definite difference.... i.e. the WA #s would no doubt be different.

I've seen GTAs with both colors, and the difference is easy to spot. The lighter color looks better, IMO, on certain colors.... like the Russet Brown cars, for instance.