A couple of weeks ago I inquired about wheels for the S.F. and you cats overwhelmingly recommended RA for some chrome steelies. Called them,spoke with WheelKid(great guy),ordered my stuff and they showed up two days ago. All I can say is "WOW!". 15 X 5's and 15 X 8's,great chrome(oooh! Shiny! I like Shiny!) and fast turnaround. OK,I'm lame;I have no pics-you guys know what they look like-but when they go on the car,I promise to get pics. Really. I will. I promise. Now...the question is: do I run the front tires blackwall or whitewall out? The rears will be black side out. I've envisioned both in my head,and have consulted the numerous books and magazines depicting the S/S cars in that mid-Sixties time frame and have seen both. I noticed the whitewalls were a tad wider then;mine are not that wide-1-1/2"-but I'm leaning towards the white out;no,wait,black out,no,maybe white,no,black on one side and white on the other side...When I figure it out,I'll show y'all. Thanks to you folks and RA!
The majority of the pics I've seen show front blacks,but there's enough showing whitewall fronts(and rears) to get me thinkin'. That's dangerous,I know.
If it's a 60s show car then the WWs should show. It goes well with the angel hair. If you want it to look fast and not fluffy then it's black walls all the way. In my area WWs were dead by the time I got into hotrodding in 1964. Your fathers car had WWs. Guys here love to use the magazines as proof of their opinion but that is not necessarily what was happening on the street in real life rodding.
Tommy;good points there. Like I said,the majority of pics from 1964 and -'65 show blackwall fronts-these are from the books "Factory Lightweights","Super Stock-Racing the Family Sedan","Quarter Mile Muscle" and others I have. The WWs were more prevelant in 63 and earlier from what I've seen,but every so often I'd see a slightly later pic of a car with front or front/rear WWs. In fact,I've seen a few pics of the old Faubel '64 Dodge I used to own running various combinations of BW and WW tires,and sometimes with red and sometimes with black(even white) wheels. It's interesting that,for the most part,the street crowd has emulated the "racer" look,at least in terms of "form". We know the serious guys were more interested in the "function" aspect. I guess that I won't decide until the guy at the tire shop says:"So...ya want WW or BW out...". A decision to make my head hurt.
Ok,finally got the skins mounted,and I can't wait to get them on the car. 205/75-15 on the front,255/70-15 for the rear. Should sit just right;I'm hoping that I won't need to go with 215/75s on the front;probably just crank up the torsion bars a little. Pics,of course,when the rubber meets the road-down the road. Again,thanks to you folks for the advice and recommendations,and to Rallye America and their crew for a fine product.
The Jalopy Journal
