Feedback on Bias-look Radial Tires.
 

Does anyone have any experience with these tires? I like the look, but concerned with how they drive and their durability. We take a lot of road trips in our classic cars, so that is a concern. I also need a radial front tire for when I'm running my drag radials. Thanks in advance.

Wes

https://www.cokertire.com/american-c...e-radials.html

https://www.cokertire.com/media/cata...ack-10in_2.png

Yes, I put these on my 56 Fleetwood in 2015. They handle well on the 5,200 pound Fleetwood but your results may vary with a Corvette. Reliability and wear have been fine. They are egregiously expensive but no one else makes one. It is a good solution to the problem of stupid looking radials on 60 year old automobiles.

Dan

Diamondback tires has a new tire.
https://www.dbtires.com/newproducts.html

Dan, that's a beautiful Cadillac. I agree with you about the look radial patterned tires on classic cars. Thank you for the feedback.

Thanks for posting the link. I wasn't aware diamond back was making them, too.

Sort of surprising that two tire retailers have geared up to produce a radial tire with a bias ply foot print. Makes me wonder if they aren't coming from the same manufacturer.

That Cadillac brought back some memories. As a child, my Dad had a green '56. It brought us out from Minnesota to California. I remember the "Autronic Eye" and the tube radio. The a/c was ice cold. Beautiful car!

I bought my 60 with Cokers (five years old with no wear) and switched to DBs because I couldn’t stand the ride. There’s no comparison. DBs are wonderful.

But these are not typical DBs built off of a high quality current mass production tire. These are custom built in special molds by some small specialty company - unless they are ground down tire casings that are being recapped by DB or a third party. Curious to know where DB and Coker are sourcing these tires.

I have bias ply tires on my car (as u can see). They look good for local shows n cruising but I might get a more modern tire for long hauls.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.cor...926293dd2f.jpg

Dan, I was suspect about their origins when I bought them for the reasons you raise, the high cost and a problem I had with a set of Cokers once before. At the time (2015) no one else had them and I've only just learned here that Diamondback has them now as well.

We looked them over and they appear well made before we mounted them. They are not a recap and while the big Caddy hasn't gone more than say 500 miles since they've been holding air, are free of micro bubbles on the sidewalls (which plagued a set of Coker American Classic radials on my 63 Galaxie), and ride well. Its difficult to ascertain handling with a 56 Cadillac, but my guess is they would work well under a C2, certainly better than those ice skates guys call bias ply! (I have them too, on my 61 Plymouth Superstock where they are dangerous plain and simple but look the part).

I've not seen DB's version, but these radials disguised as bias ply really help out old cars. I don't know how much they help a C2, my 65 looks fine with its Firestone 215 75's but older cars, say 50's cars really need the wheel wells filled and regular radials don't cut it. Problem is many of my cars use 14" wheels and these look-a-likes are to my knowledge 15" only.

On the Cokers I tend to run them overinflated to try and minimize the radial bulge at the bottom, the only real dead giveaway.

Dan

I'd like to get the square edge tire look for my '67.

Thanks Dan. Jeff - I've toyed with the thought too since I need new tires.

Note that the tire diameters presented in the Coker & DB links are different for the same 15" tire sizes (6.70 & 7.10). Cokers seem unusually "tall"; I believe that 28" is max dia that will squeeze into a midyear spare tub. Coker had some red-stripe examples of these at their BG Indy display last year's event -- looked nice.