Anyone have information, history or theory on white lettered Firestone tires pictured in old hot rod photos ? See it a lot on old salt flat car photos and old race cars. Wondering if they were painted on or came from the manufacture. Think I'm going to "white" the Firestone on my tires.
If you look in the ads in old sports car magazines of the fifties you will see special crayons or paint for painting the letters that were molded into the tires. If I had to guess I would say it started as a sponsorship deal, if you won a race with their tires the tire company got free publicity but they wanted everyone to see their brand, and to show up in photos. Some time in the sixties they began to make white letter performance tires with the white molded into the tire.
Hello 41, As teenagers in the late 50s and early 60s, we used white chalk held sideways to make the Firestone stand out. The smooth edge of the chalk, (borrowed from my high school English class) just coated the letters evenly. They did not last long, especially on rainy days or any kind of moisture, plus, you can't wash your car. Then my brother paid me to paint each letter with white, model car paint. That stayed on for quite some time. But, the chalk will give you an idea of what it will look like as a finished product. Jnaki We saw this white lettering at car shows and thought it looked cool on blackwall tires. The original, whitewall tires from the factory got turned to the inside of the car. The whitewall look was not popular with our HS group.
Aftermarket companies sold the crayons. We found out that a lumber marking crayon was the same thing and they are still made today. I'll take a photo of one and post it.
I believe the brand is called, Marks-a-Lot. There are several colors besides white, yellow, red and blue are the ones I remember. They skin over after use, so you have to kind of peel that away. My first (and only) set of redline tires were created with these. It actually is pretty weatherproof and can be carefully touched up/ recoated.
When I had my 1964 ford galaxie wood gran sided station wagon I used to run the raised letter tires tiger paws.It looked sharp.Bruce.
They were still selling those crayons in the '70s. Poor man's white letter tires. A lot of what you used to see on the race car circuit were tires that had the company painted on the tire. Most of those tires didn't have to last more then one race or one season. It didn't need to be durable.
Markal Paint stik. made by LA-CO industries,Inc. Elk Grove Village, IL. 60007. And they did come in different colors. Each time you use them after they sat for a while you must remove the harden skin from the tip. The size of the stick will last you a long time.
I’m not sure how old these dirtrackers (definitely vintage ) are but they appear to have white lettering from the factory.
The Jalopy Journal
