papillion

Which of the recent photos are machine face?

Premmer

If you find one for the C7 factory wheel other than the thumbnail image in the ordering guide, please post it.

ZL-1

After attending Detroit, Chicago, the Bash, the NCM and 60th plant tour, and Bloomington Gold I have seen dozens of C7s. I have seen precisely 1 (one) machine face wheel. I could touch it but was not allowed to take a picture. It's on the left wall as you enter the tour room at the BG Assembly plant. The background is silver, not competition gray like the 427 machine face wheel. For that reason it looks very much like the standard silver wheel. With its heavy clearcoat it's just very hard to tell the difference unless you are looking for it. Maybe outside if the sun catches it you'd notice more difference.

I'm not a big fan of chrome wheels but I have to say the chrome version of these base wheels looks very good because the wheels are simple. You don't get all that reflective bling like around the centers of the Z51 chrome wheels.


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Premmer

Based on what you saw if your choises were silver-painted or machine-faced, would you spend the 2K?

ZL-1

This decision is why I was trying so hard to see a machine face wheel. I did ask Harlan in February and he said they decided on silver not gray for the background. I had hoped for competition gray background. After that I leaned toward the base silver wheel and ordered the car that way. Still I hoped to see a machine face wheel, I could change the order until it reached 3000 status. I finally saw one Thursday when my order was already at 3300. No regrets, I would have stayed with the silver painted ones anyway now that I've seen how similar they look.

As I recall they're $1595 and the chrome version is $2000.

Long time Corvette guys may remember that they came out with a good-looking pinwheel design wheel in 1991. In 1991-92 it was all silver, then in 1993-96 it was machine face with silver painted background. Although the later one added some flash, the earlier version had a more european looking quality, smoother and showing more depth. Sometimes a machined face masks the depth of a wheel's design.