Thread: ** Radial Rear Tires For A 32 Hiboy**

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Go to Coker Catalog ...http://www.coker.com/store/customer/home.php?cat=364

get your sizes then go to ... http://www.1010tires.com/TireSizeCalculator.asp

Take your size and start with the calulation to get the right sizes you need

God I love the Deuce Den! You guys saved me lots of work... New tires are on my schedule for Jan or Feb, so I'll be ready to make the right choice when the time comes! I too like tall thin tires in the back.... Love the cocker tires look but the wandering and hard ride are making me look elsewhere... Well, we'll see.

hey, have you guys noticed how in the 40's & 50's many roadsters rode with white walls on only the back or only the front (and solid black tires on the other 2 wheels)... I wonder why they did it that way back then...

Faith,
If I remember correctly the fronts were usually 550/15's (Volkswagen tires) or something very close to that size and I don't believe they came in wide whites. In my case it didn't matter cause I never liked wide whites anyway. I had a set of 550/15 Pirellies on the front of my '40 sedan.

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

C9, I would say that's about a perfect tire and wheel combination on the rear!!!!!!

Thanks, getting the car down an inch, maybe two in the rear would help.
Trouble with that is, I didn't "C" the frame so right now I'm stuck with what you see.
You can bet that the 31 is "C'd" in the back and notched in front.

I do have several modifications in mind for the 32 once the 31 is up and running.
Whenever the heck and darn that will be.

Doesn't make too much difference, having the 32 to drive helps . . . a lot.

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"have you guys noticed how in the 40's & 50's many roadsters rode with white walls on only the back or only the front (and solid black tires on the other 2 wheels)... I wonder why they did it that way back then..."


NTFDAY is pretty much right on the money.
One thing to keep in mind when discussing modifications and trends back in the day is that your town would be a little different than what guys were doing in the town down the road a ways.

The V-Dub 5.50/15's were a popular size to run on the front.
Nice part was, the car could be down in the front pretty good and the 5.50's cleared everything quite well.

8.20/15's (about 28" tall) were the tire of choice for most who were pursuing the "Dago" look, but many opted for a gentler rake with less front end drop and used 7.60/15's in the back.
One advantage here was, the 7.60's fit the fender wells in most cars a little better.
True with the Shoebox coupe I ran.

Interesting part was, when I did the first Olds Rocket Motor swap into the Shoebox, I had a pair of 8" wide slicks for it.
At the time, my daily was a 51 Plymouth 4 door with 37 or so Dodge floor box and requisite tall chrome plated shift lever.
It was dropped in front and looked like a hot rod, but it only ran the flat six.

Somewhere along the line I needed a couple of rear tires for the Plymouth and stuck the slicks on it.
Aside from being fun to drive in the rain - - and getting sideways bad enough to watch oncoming traffic through the passenger window, the big (for the time) slicks fit the Plymouth's fenderwells with no problems and room left over.
Not so for the Shoebox.

A couple of years back 1998 - 2003 or so I owned a stock 50 Plymouth coupe.
Looking at the rear fenderwell space a little closer and remembering how easily the 8" old style hard slicks fit, it looks like the Ply coupe would take 10" slicks on an 8" and probably 10" wheel with no problems.

Long answer to your question, but the basics on the mismatched front and rear tires - aside from the deliberate choice of bigs and littles for added rake/Dago - was usually economics.
The end of the 50's was when blackwalls started getting popular for hot rods.

Hot rodders tended to replace tires in pairs simply due to they'd rather spend the money elsewhere.
Usually the engine.
Horsepower was the thing most of us strived for and there wasn't a whole lot of sitting around with a car that looked hot, but really wasn't.

We had drive-ins we frequented, but there was not such thing as a 'rod run.'
You showed up, checked out the cars and if nothing was happening and it was a Friday or Saturday night, you'd take your date somewhere more interesting.

We raced our cars, on the orange orchard two laners and the dragstrip.
Dragstrips were fun and it was interesting to find how fast your car really was, but most times you ended up on a lonely country road when it came time to race for the "fastest car in town" title.

Fun times and fondly remembered....