My 1951 Hudson Commodore came with 4 ply 710x15 tires with 4 inch white sidewalls. It handles pretty terribly as you might imagine. I want a vintage look with the wide whites. It looks like Coker has the closest to what I'm looking for. It's a radial with 2 3/4 inch white walls item #700307 (looks like nobody makes a wider whitewall). My question is this...After spending $1500 for the tires, will I notice a big difference in handling? The tires are still pretty narrow, not a lot of rubber meeting the road.
I do not recommend Coker....too many issues. I have had better results with Diamondback Tires. While the radials do make a massive improvement in tracking on rutted, crowned roads at speed, you also need to look at the tie-rod ends (all 4 of them), the Centerpoint Steering pin and it's two needle bearings, the ball ends of the pitman arm and center steering arm, the kingpins, the upper and lower, inner and outer control arm bushings, and the steering box worm and sector gears to find and eliminate and slop or play, even if it requires replacement / adjustment of these parts. That is just the front end.......The rear leaf springs, their shackles and bushings, the front spring eye rubber bushings, and the Panhard bar rubber bushings all keep the rear axle straight and tracking properly. When any, or all of these are worn, the rear axle is shifting around, causing the rear of the car to steer outwards, making the car feel unstable- spooky. From my 40+ years of experience, any car 70+ years old will need attention in some or all of the aforementioned areas.
https://dbtires.com/product/auburn-deluxe-radial-15-16-sizes/
For drivers, I will also only recommend Diamond Back's wide white walls. They're a great radial tire first and a pretty nice looking whitewall second. Their road hazard insurance is terrific. My hubcap flew off and took a chunk of the white sidewall with it. I snapped a picture and they sent a replacement. Handling is superb, although I agree with Kenneth about health-checking expired parts. In addition, the single best handling upgrade I did was installing a bigger/thicker front sway bar on my '53 Hornet. [url= https://nextcloud.53hor.net/index.php/s/xJSbzqB8DArkdZt/preview ]Here is a picture of the DBWW radials on my Hornet.[/url]
Great-looking tires Adam! I will check them out...thanks!
Thank you Ken! Great advice! I will look into these possible mechanical issues and look into Diamondback tires as well.
Just been looking at some replacement tyres as well. Whitewalls seem to be prohibitively expensive here is Australia up to $800 per tyre. Did come across a brand called Kontio Whitepaw dont know if they are available in the States.
I will check it out...thanks Steven!
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