Hot Rods White letter tires..poll

I would never run them on my newer cars, but mid 50's - early 60's we would paint them as part of detailing for shows so I thought I would outline the letters on my coupe.

Mick

 

I had similar experiences when I would have them install the tires "white letters in"..they looked at me like I was on drugs (hey, it was the late sixties/early seventies, so a legitimate response).
I get it on the period correct muscle cars of the seventies, but I always refer to '65 and earlier cars/designs/custom trends, etc. on this site.

 

That's what I'm taking about! I do dig the show car look of hand painted letters.

 

The white Firestone looked neat on the Bonneville cars in the '40's and '50's. After that, not so much.

 

Well, Firestone was prominently lettering their Indy race tires as early as the late '20s and NASCAR in the early '60s so the practice is certainly 'traditional' if first appearance is any indicator. And they did show up at the salt flats on the high-end efforts, bringing it closer to 'hot rodders'. Also as shown by some examples, owners were detailing their tires with hand-painted lettering in the '50s, emulating the race tires or just for 'effect' on some customs but you couldn't say it was a 'common' practice. The hand-lettered tires generally didn't feature the 'in your face' lettering styles that became common once they became available in the consumer market, due to manufacturing methods as much as anything else. The red-lines on the first muscle cars started the performance tire craze, but these were too-easily copied onto 'regular' tires (remember how many tire shops could 'convert' your vanilla tires to red lines for a small fee?) so they answered with raised white letters. The cheapskates and low-buckers were back to hand lettering... LOL

So with a 'hard' cut-off at '65, no, they're not 'traditional'.

But people forget how much the tire market was changing in the '60s when many of us grew up. Wide whites were out and difficult if not impossible to find. Any wheel diameter larger than 15" for cars the same. Even blackwall tires were disappearing, skinny whites were common on nearly everything, if you wanted blackwalls you more often than not had buy whitewalls and turn the whitewall in. The high-school parking lots were starting to fill up with mid-late '50s and early '60s cars and RWL tires were an easy way to differentiate your car from your parents car, particularly if you couldn't afford custom wheels. A set of 70-series RWL tires could look good on many of these cars, not so much on the earlier cars. Of course, it eventually got stupid (N50-15s anyone?) and led to all kinds of wretched excess.

There were other factors at work too. One biggy IMO was the tire manufacturers kept changing how they sized tires. A 6.70-15 became a 7.75-15, then a F78-15, then a 205/75R15... gaining width but losing overall diameter with every change. I bought a '56 Ford 2-dr in the early '80s that had been originally equipped with the optional 7.10 size and still had the OEM spare in the trunk. Wanting to match actual diameter (the tires on it looked too small), I ended up with a 235/75R15, two sizes larger than what the 'conversion' chart called for. And still a bit shorter than the 7.10, it scraped on both sides of the wheel well mounted on a stock Ford wheel.

Yes, reproduction tires are now available. As many are based on current production tires, you'll still have issues with sizing not quite being 'right'. The accurate repos fix that, but you end up with the old tech in most cases and many don't like the loss of handling/ride that entails, not to mention wear. And when you claim 'they do fine', I'll file that along with the 'drum brakes are as good as discs' statements.

 

I don't particularly care for them on the older cars but I am one of those who painted his own letters white on my first car in 1964 (hamb era correct) on my 56 Ford. It was becoming a trend and a 16 year old kid wanted to be trendy. It went along with my Falcon bucket seats, cut outs and knuckle buster floor shift.

 

I prefer "smoothies" without any lettering.

 

White letters look "OK" on OT muscle cars with rally wheels. If using Cragar SS (the all-time best looking wheel, IMHO). definitely go with black walls. Otherwise the letters "compete" with the wheels for your eye. Kind of like wearing suspenders and a belt at the same time.

 

There's never a need for a white lettered tire, whether on a rod or a '60s
musclecar. It just adds a busy look to the rolling assembly. I've always
waited to see someone put a different brand of advertising on each corner
of their ride. Someone must have done it. Just as with OLD NAVY sweatshirts
and Harley-Davidson t-shirts, if you want me to advertise your product you
should be paying me, or at least give me a heavy discount.

 

My roadster has real Firestone sprint car tires not Coker repops.
White letters are proudly displayed.

 

No white letters unless they say M&H or maybe Firestone, Gum Dipped. It’s a late ‘60s-‘70s thing plain and simple.


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Back in the 60's I would do it all the time. All the cool guys did it!

 

How about gold?

 

I like white letters on the appropriate car with the appropriate make of tire. I wouldn't for example, want white letter Hankook or Kumho tires.

Bob

 

Some people are really going to hate this, but these pics of my 32 sedan are from the early 70's, a few years past the HAMB cutoff, when Buick wires and Firestone gold line sport car/Indy car specials with the lettering hand painted gold were the hot set up.

Mick

 

I think most anyone here wouldn't bitch about this. It has a "look". Firestone Wide Oval
and Goodyear Polyglas white letters were tastefully done. As usual, though, all hell
broke loose and the ridiculous examples started to appear. I saw the older guys in my
small town use the lettering pencils, but I didn't get my first car until I was 17 in '66,
a '67 Nova, and at that time we were in the age of redlines.

Posted by ct1932ford:

 

I've always not been too fond of the white letters on my tires, definitely a 70's thing. Always figured I'd have gotten around to some new taller tires by now, but hasn't happened yet. I've heard you can actually take the white lettering off with some sort of chemical, but I don't recall what it is. Anyone care to rejuvenate my memory?

 

Parnelli Jones says they work

And the boss man seem to be good
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=45862

 

Yep. Definitely fits.



Those Firestones look great
Would work on period build.
The later 60s and 70s look cool on those era style builds as well but I wouldn’t mix the styles.

 

I have white letter BFG’s on my car, but they were on the car that I traded for it and nearly new, so I kept them. They look OK, but the next set will be black walls. I like white letter tires on most wide body cars, ie, the fenders don’t unbolt from the body. Really, it depends on the car style, I don’t think they would look good on a smooth 49 Merc custom, but might look fine on a 49 Ford coupe with a hot rod look to it. I saw them all the time on tri- 5 chevys when I was growing up, so they are a natural look to me on them.

 

Well I still like them....


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White lettered tires would probably look OK on my coupe, since it has the old dirt track look. I just put new tires on it, but I don't think I'm going to paint the tire lettering. Hankook probably wouldn't look right. I did have to tell them to turn the white wall in though. I don't have pictures of the car with the new tires on it, but I have a picture with old tires on it. Gene

 

I do like the Goodyear blue streaks, redlines and goldlines... Just not into those big honkin' white letter tires.....

 

Mick, now that's a nice subtle look.

 

Not a problem, cool stuff always started on Race Cars. Bob

 

I like that a lot!

 

so no one used tyre lettering sticks (Cal Custom I think) they came in white and yellow, sorta waxy stuff, Raised white letters NO , detailed markings yes

 

Miller liked em

front wheel drive cars used em

Diesel powered cars did

 

I would rather run through Hell in gasoline underwear, than have white letter tires.