Saw this wheel today in a local tire and wheel store in the Detroit metro area. Owner said he didn't know anything about it besides the fact it has "Firestone" cast on the backside along with 17x4 The center cap is not original to the wheel according to the store owner. Unfortunately there is only one. It appears to be magnesium. I would love to find out more or if anyone has ever seen this wheel. Sent from my E6782 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
1971 Stutz Blackhawk had 'em....I mounted tires on a few of those when I worked for Firestone around 1972-74....They also took a special tire.
Yep....you can see on the spare tire on the car in the photo that even the tires said "Firestone LXX" on them.
Wow some great conversation info right away. So look at the bulge in the sidewall! The wheel was crazy narrow. Thanks. Sent from my E6782 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Even with the old Clark 20/20 they were a BEAR to mount. There were some similar tires on VW wheels. Deep, wide, stiff sidewalls.
Looking close at the wheel pic and it appears the bead flanges are a bit 'rough'. Maybe this wheel was 'retired' from service after being run flat.......has that 'look' common to aluminum wheels in that circumstance. Ray
have seen a set offered on craigslist in the past - seems that they were offered as a early T-Bird special wheel
A friend of mine had a set on a 64 Chev Impala in the mid 80's. It was weird then but in style now. As I remember they road pretty hard.
That was sorta the theory. Not really a run flat but just that the tire was so wide at the bead area that it wouldn't run off the rim if it went flat. Didn't work, and was just one more of that string of boondoggles in the 70's that eventually bankrupted Firestone.
First thing I thought of was some kind of Indy car wheel being 17 inch. I could see them as a set on something with a widened version for the rear with some vintage Firestones Sent from my E6782 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Brings back some memories. Around 1969/70 (forget which) I interviewed for a job at Firestone Tire & Rubber (actually Steel Products Division). They gave me the usual nickel tour and we discussed a few topics of interest that they were working on. This wheel / tire setup was one of the topics. As I recall, they said the original "trial run" was in the Minneapolis area. There was also a version that had a rubber donut that was part of the rim and inside of the tire when mounted. They found that people would be driving around on flat tires for an extended time because they couldn't tell they had a flat...so that was shelved. There were also plans for a version which had mylar (I think) reflective segments molded into the cantilevered sidewall. The purpose of this was so that when driving at night and you slowed down wo hitting your brakes, the reflective segments would cause a strobe effect in the headlights of the car approaching from the rear when the speed passed thru a certain speed range. Interesting comment about these possibly being for an Indy car. They were actually fooling around with smaller diameter wheels / tires.....I think it was 10 inch for front and 12 inch for rear in an attempt to the profile of the cars lower.
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