Land vehicles: wheels and axles – Wheel – With wheel cover
Reexamination Certificate
2002-06-28
2003-06-10
Stormer, Russell D. (Department: 1733)
Land vehicles: wheels and axles
Wheel
With wheel cover
C301S037320, C301S037106
Reexamination Certificate
active
06575537
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a double deck wheel cover, and more particularly to one, which makes ordinary tires look like sport tires when fitted onto ordinary tires, and which is constructed such as not to easily fall off the tire.
Car tires are generally grouped into sport tires and ordinary ones. One major difference between sport tires and ordinary ones is aspect ratio, the proportion of the thickness of the lateral portion to the width of the tread; sports tires have lower aspect ratio than ordinary ones. For two tires of the same tread width, the one having lower aspect ratio will look lower and flatter. The main purpose of lowering the aspect ratio is to increase both stability and controllability of tires. However, tires with lower aspect ratios will cause reduction of comfort of the driver and passengers of the cars, and are much more expensive because they have to be made with relatively big width and increased strength. Therefore, lower aspect ratio tires are usually used on sport cars. Furthermore, ordinary wheels also have to be replaced with ones having bigger diameters so that lower aspect ratio tires can be fitted in place, causing increase of expense. In light of the fact that people would feel that low aspect ratio tires are more attractive and fashionable, some owners of non-sport cars spent relatively much money on substituting lower aspect ratio tires for the original ones, only to have reduced comfort of driving.
Referring to
FIG. 11
, a conventional wheel cover
2
includes a round edge
21
, and several spaced connecting plates
22
sticking out from the inner side. The connecting plates
22
each has an out-facing engaging bar
222
, and in-facing engaging protrusions
221
that oppose each other to define a space in between. A steel ring
23
is fitted between the protrusions
221
. The wheel cover
2
is fitted on the central portion of the lateral side of a wheel by means of connecting the engaging bars
222
, and the ring
23
to the wheel. Such wheel cover
2
has a monotonous appearance, and has only one function of covering the wheel, which is usually unattractive.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, it is a main object of the present invention to provide a wheel cover to a wheel, which can make ordinary tires look like low aspect ratio sport tires when fitted onto the wheel.
It is another object of the present invention to construct the present wheel cover such that it can't easily fall off the wheel.
The present wheel cover includes an inner part, and an outer part. The inner part is detachably fitted to a wheel. The outer part has spaced connecting plates projecting from the inner side and through corresponding slots of the inner part. Tension springs are connected to the connecting plates, and are joined to the inner part to allow the outer part to be displaced relative to the inner one without possibility of falling off when the wheel hits all object. The outer part is made to be bigger than the outer part so that an outer edge thereof covers a portion of a lateral side of a tire joined to the wheel. Thus, thickness of visible portion of the tire lateral side is reduced to cause the tire to look like a sport tire.
REFERENCES:
patent: 2386234 (1945-10-01), Lyon
patent: 2909390 (1959-10-01), Wood
patent: 3048445 (1962-08-01), Shoemaker
patent: 5372406 (1994-12-01), Ohtsuka et al.
patent: 6059375 (2000-05-01), Shryock
patent: 6089671 (2000-07-01), Iacovelli et al.
patent: 6443528 (2002-09-01), Polka
LandOfFree
Double deck wheel cover does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Double deck wheel cover, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Double deck wheel cover will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3131737