Factory wheels and period correct tires

Just curious how many guys here are using factory wheels, and year appropriate tires ?

I just restored a set of wheels, caps, and rings for my Tiger as well as adding set of bias ply tires. Probably only gonna be used on show days and certainly not on track or autox days.

Love the look myself. Heres a couple pics from the CAT club board

http://www.catmbr.org/VB_forum/showthread.php?t=273

I am. I have factory Dino style Cromadoras on the '68 Fiat and am getting Vredestein sprint + 165 13 tires for it this week.

Only problem with that is the narrow wheels that make it impossible to get any reasoanbly modern rubber on them.

The vast majority of 1950s sports car have 15" x 4-4.5 rims and the only thing available are a couple of old style high profile repli-tires.

If you want anything modern (= fun) you need about a 5.5" rim width.

I run 5.5" rims with 185 x 65 on one of my MGs, for instance.

Modern rubber is important to me on a driver. I found a set of period correct iron cross wheels. Mine are so correct that they are mismatched with two Cromadora and two Speedline look-a-like iron cross wheels. I have yet to see a Fiat Spider with 4 original iron cross wheels from the same maker that were installed by the dealer. Fiat dealers must have carried both and were not particular. Original tires were those strange soft looking radial tires so period is modern.

Cheers Ron

About stock Tiger wheels....

There was a factory bulletin from the mid 60's warnining folks not to use the stock wheels for any sort of motorsports, and there are examples of the stock wheels failing when stressed. How old are those wheels now?

I still have my stock wheels in the garage, but the Tiger rides on a nice set of Western "Minilite clones".

Stu

For what it's worth, I keep lobbying for more classic-friendly tire sizes. The reality is justifying the expense. Still, that hasn't shut me up on the topic.

I've got old Cragars on the 1800S:

And Ford Polycast wheels on the 122S:

Both a 15x6. Stock wheels are 15x4.5 and 15x4 respectively.

stu67tiger wrote: About stock Tiger wheels.... There was a factory bulletin from the mid 60's warnining folks not to use the stock wheels for any sort of motorsports, and there are examples of the stock wheels failing when stressed. How old are those wheels now? I still have my stock wheels in the garage, but the Tiger rides on a nice set of Western "Minilite clones". Stu

Therefore my comment about no track days or autox either. I still plan to use my panasports and radials for most weekend drives. But love the originals for car shows.

Still using the original wheels but have more modern rubber installed. The down side of using original wheels is it's getting difficult to get tires to fit let alone have a choice of tread. My 1970 Opel GT has 13" rims stock. It's really going to be slim pickings for my 63 Midget when the time comes for tires for it. Even getting difficult to find tires for my Miata with 14" rims. Guess I'll have to upgrade rims on the Miata and the Opel. To upgrade rims on the Midget would be difficult because of width limitations.

While I'm not planning to go back to stock wheels on my Dart (the only options in '66 were plain steelies with full wheel covers), I have been thinking if I ever swap wheels, I'd rather have a set of 15" Minilites or Panasports than the 16" billets on it now. Minilite type wheels are still period correct but not nearly as common as the Cragar / Torque-thrust ones you see all the time at local car events.

Definitely not putting Polyglass or other '60s tires on it though. Not a very big visual change but modern rubber is quite a big handling change.

On both my cars, the TR4 and the Morgan, Im totally about the orginal size tires. Since I dont compete per se, Im all about the fun to drive factor. Orginal size rubber keeps the car fun to drive by reducing the envelope of proformance, and the speed needed to obtain and stay on the "edge" of that envelope. AND they just look right on those machines.

Leo