History Rader - M/T (now Radir) Wheels - how did people run them in the 60's?

Found a pair of 15 x 6's (Chevy pattern) like ClearSpot's at Brad54's swap meet last month- would love to find two more

 

Just outside of Washington, DC in the 1960s Raders were not the hot lick. Cragars were the drool wheels. Slots were popular if only because they were inexpensive.

I remember thinking back in the sixties that they were so flat looking and I never saw any that weren't run with the same off-set front and rear. I don't know what off-sets Rader offered back then.

The other knock on them was that there were some hub caps made back then to look like mags and they were very Rader looking. So Raders reminded me of those hub caps.

But now they are growing on me.

 

I have been running wide whites on my Radirs....



I am getting ready to get new tires soon. I was running 195 65R15's and 265 75R15's...thinking of going with TA Radials in 155 and 255 (white letters in with black one shot on them) and going black wall look.

 

Found a set of flat spoke Mickey Thompson's, (Rader's), last spring. Bought them from the original owner who got them through Sears, in 1964.

He bought the first pair for his 57 Chevy, and his parents bought the second pair as a High School graduation gift. However, in 1965 he got a letter from Uncle Sam and went to South Vietnam. Sold the car, and stored the wheels in his Mom's Basement for the next 50 years. A couple of months after I bought the wheels, I found a set of spinners in their original box. Look to be NOS.

The wheels were on Craigslist for a couple of months, and no one else replied to the ad. If I hadn't bought the wheels, the seller was going to scrap them for lack of interest. The photos are in as found condition.

 

Cool thread

 

In our neck of the woods in the sixties after market wheels were rarely seen. Most of us spent our money on go fast engine parts and utilized steel wheels rather then care about the looks of after market wheels. If my memory serves me right MT and Cragar S/S type wheels came well after the sixties.

 

My brother ran them on his black 271HP 1965 Mustang in 65.

 

Cragar S/S wheel's came out in early 1964

 

Wrong again...

 

Okay i have a set with single rib steel hoops , so that is way cool I have originals. That is what I like collecting , the original speed and custom parts.

 

First saw these on a local 64-65 F100... heard that truck was wrecked, took about a year to chase these down.... outer rim chrome pretty well gone, repro trim rings for 60's corvette rallye wheels do a good cover-up. hard finding 'right' center cap, but made-do with a close fit and some electrical tape as a spacer to get it tight.

 

The bottom picture shows my Corvette with the M/T wheels, all the ribs, and the knock off blade spinner proudly displaying on a red jeweled like background M/T. I thought those wheels made the look. I also ran them with Atlas skinny blackwalls and the thin line on the sidewall I colored in with a gold tire crayon. Looked the tits.

 

Put a set of Mickey Ts on my '64 Chevelle SS just before heading to VN. They were in rough shape after a year in Boston where my wife & kids stayed with my parents & siblings.

 

M/Ts totally changed the look of that 'Vette, 2Many. Nice.

 

I put a set on my 66 Vette last year
headed out to its first cruise in this Saturday.

 

I have also tried to get info one the M/T Raider wheels produced in the 60’s. I have been told by the family members that their Father ran them on this Coupe built in early sixties.I have some old photo’s but they don’t show a really good shot of the Raider’s but @12 or 13 years old I believe he ran it with thin whitewalls.


Sent from my iPad using H.A.M.B.

 

Could be Raider or Raider or Radir. Depends on when they came to market and if the same wheel company produced them for different name brands.J.C. Penny, Sears, Western Auto, etc.etc. I worked in a tire sales store in the early 70’s, much to my surprise we handled many different lines that were all made by 4/5 major tire makers.


Sent from my iPad using H.A.M.B.

 

Here's some more photos of my M/T wheels, and spinners. The cones for the spinners are new ones from Radir Wheels. Exactly like the original M/T cones, except MUCH sturdier.

Although the NOS M/T spinners had never been installed, the original cones were broken......Which is probably why they sat on a shelf for 50 + years.

 

raising the dead to show these ugly ass center caps off on these sears rader wheels

 

those are pretty bad

 

In the very late 1960s I ran a pair of 14s Radars on the front, And chrome reverse 15s on the back of my 1963 SS impala

 

They were not popular in south west Okla when i was growing up. 1950 and 60

 

Those center caps look familiar. Not sure where I've seen them though... For some reason, I'm thinking some model car kit had wheels with those caps.

 

“High school shop class teacher and Bonneville racer Dick Beith got an idea to reinvent the wheel itself. "I thought about it and the only difference between a mag wheel and a stock wheel is the center, or the spider as they called it," he says. "So I thought, if I just made a center piece and put it in a steel rim I'd have the look for way less."

"Dick Rader chased me down and said, 'Hey, you got a good idea; let's get together.' Instead he went to L.A. and teamed up with Mickey Thompson and away they went."

From a Motor Trend article:

Like other wheel designs, they also appeared as knock-offs. Speed Engineering produced a version of the single-rib. Former distributor Trans American Products in nearby Long Beach produced a copy that it called the Radar. Even the model number is an anagram of Rader's.

1. Wheel Corp of America referred to the original single-rib Rader as the DBR-100R (polished) or
DBR-100S or SPC (satin).
2. A former Wheel Corp dealer, Trans Am knocked off this design in the later ’60s. called Radar wheels

3. Radir Wheels produces a very faithful looking one-piece U.S.-made aluminum version of this wheel.

American Racing Equipment 5 spoke new 1962

Hello,

We were always looking for the next thing to add on to our 1958 Impala. By, 1960 the motor was modified as much as it was going to be and still be reliable for all encounters. I did not want to worry about a larger cubic inch motor exploding in the dark of night on Cherry Avenue. The tow hitch welded on below the rear bumper told of the next chapter in the 58 Chevy Impala’s lifeline. A tow car for our 1940 Willys Coupe build in all of its stages.

Yes, as teenagers, everyone looked at the latest wheel or tire plus combo when something new showed up. The day I rolled into the drive-in restaurant parking lot with Bruce Slicks underneath, that shocked everyone. They knew it was business in the lot as usual, a gab fest, challenges that sometimes go unanswered for the sure as fact, results without leaving the parking lot. That was the fun part of teenage bantering, as well as just hanging around having fun.

I wanted the new American Racing 5 spoke wheels for the Impala. But, the cost was too high for 99% of us. The one percent guy did not like them, as he did not like anything except chromed reversed wheels. As the year rolled by, the history of the wheel industry was going through different phases. Get something out there and someone is bound to like it for their car. Price was a factor compared to the gold standard, American Racing Equipment 5 Spokes.

Jnaki

We saw all of the early models at the local speed shops and of course, Mickey Thompson’s Shop, near our house in Long Beach. But since it was now next door to our favorite Italian Food Deli and Store, we could not help ourselves, so we stopped and saw what was what.

It was our teenage group of friends that saw the cost comparison of the American Racing Equipment 5 spoke versus the shiny flat spoke wheels at Mickey Thompson’s brand and shop displays. To us, they were unusual looking, but not in the same class as the original American Racing Equipment 5 Spoke rims. The “mags” looked high quality, whereas, the flat shiny 5 spokes of those copy cat styles just did not look right.
1963
By 1964, the flat spoked wheel(s) from those manufacturers took a back seat to the newcomer on the block, the Cragar S/S Wheels in competition and street styling. The new guy started making some in roads into the hot rod scene, but the gold standard was still the American Racing Equipment 5 spoke wheels.