Thread: Sleeks... When did they start?

Tweet

Can anyone tell me with certainty what year wide rear sleek tires became available?

Here is Hollywood hotrods owner Troy's coupe and that's what he's running in the rear. I see cocker has some that are dot approved. Mmmmmm...



Could I use his car in my flash back 1955 movie scene or would it not be period correct because of these tires? Could they have been on a 1955 hotrod? Or impossible?

NOW LET'S NOT GET INTO A 120 POSTS DISCUSSION ABOUT SLEEKS VERSES RADIALS PLEASE. Just answer the gosh darn question which is - just to be sure you are listening and paying attention:

WHAT YEAR DID THOSE TIRES START BEING USED ON HOTRODS? Thank you!

OK, off to sleep now... ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz me so tired....

....Denny, you've just got to stop being so brief in your answers! PLEASE go into a little detail on this topic! ....
Oh & Faith, your eyes must be a whole lot better than mine cuz the picture is so blurry I can even see any tires! ;0 Bill

Originally Posted by HiboyGal

Could I use his car in my flash back 1955 movie scene or would it not be period correct because of these tires? Could they have been on a 1955 hotrod? Or impossible?

The part of the car that jumps out as being anachronistic is the headers. Most hotrods in 1955 ran stock exhaust manifolds, and those headers are pretty recognizable as Lakester-style headers sold by Sanderson. The other thing that may be an anchronism is the blower, but I can't see it well enough to tell. The carbs look good, though. What would really give that car a nice period look would be wide white walls with Radir mags or chrome reversed wheels. M&H made a white wall slick in the early '60's but I'm not sure about 1955--I was only five years old back then. Depending on the angle you shot the car, you could probably use it. The black suede and pinstriping are perfect.

Denny, she's in SoCal, you should have looked in the Spanglish dictionary..........mon!

What the hell are sleeks???? Are you speedy gonzales?

Oh........Cisco!!!

sleeks, mon, you know SLEEKS. Tires with no tread, comprende????

Should have an interpreter along next time you're in that part of town.....

When Faith wakes up she's probably going to just hang herself.


Don

Ay Chica, no quieres los sleeks!

Denny you made me look up tyre. Down here in Texas we use Tire.

Kitz

Talking about how a car in a movie has to look period perfect........here is a bit of trivia for you.

In the movie "The California Kid", in that scene where they pop the hood on the '34, they did not show the actual engine in it. The '34 had a small block Ford, and it was too new to fit into the '50's theme of the movie, so they used another cars engine.

What car did they use???


Don

I believe they used a shot of the engine in Milner's coupe.

Now your make me have to watch it again.

Mike

They never showed Bob Falfa's engine in American Graffitti, but I would like to have known what he was running--a hot 327 or a 409. Sure did sound cool racing light to light with Milner.

Originally Posted by Hotrod46

I believe they used a shot of the engine in Milner's coupe.

Now your make me have to watch it again.

Mike

Yep, it was Milners engine.

As for the '55, it was pretty much a bad a** gasser. It was running an L88 427 with lots of good stuff in the drivetrain. One article I read on the building of the '55 said the shop owner that built it for the movie took it out on the streets a few nights and cleaned house streetracing it. It was later primered and used in two lane blacktop, at least one of the several cars that were built for the original movie, that is.

Don

I thought Texans called em "tar's."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In my small coastal SoCal town, it got popular to run slicks on the street just prior to the winter of 56-57.
Which means the Valley boys - S.F. Valley - and L.A. guys were probably running them 6-12 months prior.

We took a lot of our styling clues as well as performance enhancements from the S.F. and L.A. guys.
Seemed like fads started there and spread outward.

About the widest slick run on the street was 8" tread width.
Anything more than that wouldn't fit the wheel wells of most cars and we were doing good to find junkyard wheels 6" wide.

Like you'd think, the combination of wet weather and slicks caused the loss of more than a few very nice hot rods.
Mostly Shoeboxes, Tri-5 Chevys and 49-50 Oldsmobiles.

Been there myself when I got sideways in a 50 Plymouth and slid a long way until I ran off the road and hit a very small tree with no damage to the car or myself.

A little before and after the slicks-on-the-street craze, guys were using the very soft Atlas Bucron (available at Standard & Chevron stations) tires on the rear of strong running street cars.
An 8.20 x 15 - aside from helping to break driveline components - was as good as a slick on the street anyway.

As a side note, today's wide and soft wrinkle wall slicks don't grab worth a darn on street pavement.
Found that out with little brothers drag racing Henry J when it ran in the low 10's.
Half throttle would just spin the tires on his long and wide asphalt driveway.
It did well on the dragstrip's prepared surface though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rumrumm has a good point on the headers.
They were pretty uncommon on the street, but seen now and then at the dragstrip.

To me, the coupe in the pic could be used in the movie with no problems.
Granted, some of us will know that it doesn't quite fit the era, but the great majority of viewers won't.
If you're striving for accuracy you could get pretty close by swapping to a 7" - 8" wide street tire on a 6" - 7" wde wheel.
Other than that, use the coupe as is.

Rumrumm's also correct in that most engine swaps etc. used manifolds and not headers although home built headers started being seen in the very late 50's.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Denny, really enjoyed the write-up on the tires.
Thanks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GMC blowers on the street weren't common, but they were seen now and then.
Most times 4-71's driven by three V-belts.
Later on 6-71's driven by six V-belts were used.
Now and then you'd see a GMC blower that was chain driven.
There used to be an Olds Rocket powered 34 Phaeton in Santa Barbara that ran a seriously built engine with chain drive blower.
Darndest sounding thing I ever heard on the street.

4-71 blowers were a popular add-on for the 49-50 Olds coupes and two door sedans.
They sat the carb - on top of the blower - high enough that a little bit of the carb top stuck through a carb-sized hole in the hood.
Sometimes a small air cleaner would sit on top of that, but most guys opted for the almost hidden carb.
You had to look close to see them.

Along those same lines, Cragar I believe it was, made an S-shaped carb mount intake that bolted to the blower top, went down to the side of the blower, turned back to level and that's where the carb was mounted.
It allowed for the hood to be unaltered and the blower to be hidden.
(Sleepers have a long and honorable history.)
The V-belt drive GMC blown cars with hidden blower and hood were fairly quiet, but if you listened close you could tell there was something there.

Same thing with the McCullough/McCulluch (SP?) later on Paxton blown cars.
They were quiet, but the planetary ball drive had a whine to it that was hard to miss.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's a pic of an era correct car.
Pic shot by me circa 1955 when I was wandering the high school campus during photography class - if you were lucky you were allowed to take a camera and wander the school during class.

Ok so you guys need to remember that I'm not from here, and English is my third language, so a lot of times I know a word from hearing it but have no idea how to spell it... which makes for creative spelling

The botton line is YOU ALL UNDERSTOOD WHAT I MEANT.

Et puis c'est tout. Apres tout personne n'est parfait!

FAITH