[SCG] Good news about 1966-9 concours tires

[Stan East]

For purposes of the information to others on 66 to 69 Corvair tires I'll
relate my story and experiences. In 2005 I purchased 5 "new" 185-13R
Michelin XAS true 82 cross section tires from Coker through my friendly
local tire dealer It was the best price possible when importing into Canada
with an 80 cent dollar. Yes Mark much closer to your original 7.00-13 size
due to the non cross section sizing.

I installed these tires on my 66 Corsa for Buffalo in 2006 and put the car
in the car display and the first ASCE. When the Michelins arrived the tire
store called me and asked if I wanted them as the manufacturing date was
several years old. Well I went ahead anyway and by 2007 the sidewalls have
enough cracks in them that I'd loose points on concours and in a safety
inspection get rejected. There's probably less than 2000 miles on the tires.

For those that don't know my car the only thing restored on the car are the:
-wheels $1200 worth of sandblasting, cleaning, epoxy primer, filler primer
and sanding and then the correct shades of black paint to concours
standards,
-Michelins $1500 landed in Canada with taxes and duty
-and 4 NOS mag style wheel covers (a lucky $450 investment) everything else
has a 40 plus year patina. Total investment $3150 or more than the factory
air conditioned coupe cost me to buy more than 10 years ago!

So we need a source of fresh rubber with good properties to resist cracking.
As further information my 95 Safari van had Michelin summer tires all its
life and they never wore out the tread, I had to replace them each time due
to the extent of the sidewall cracking causing safety concerns. I did use
winter tires for 4 months each year when the summers were in dry dark cold
storage. After 12 years I finally traded in the Safari last October and
bought a new van which has come with...Michelins! Given my experiences with
Michelins of late I would ask questions about rubber compounds regarding
sidewall and tread cracking resistance. I have 16 year old Goodyear Eagle
winters for the Saturn which have not cracked the sidewalls but now have no
tread.

I used to be a fan of Michelins but have lost interest in recommending them
or buying them given the experiences.

Stan East

-----Original Message-----
From: scg-list-bounces at tiger.skiblack.com
[mailto:scg-list-bounces at tiger.skiblack.com] On Behalf Of Kent Sullivan
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 12:21 PM
To: airvair at earthlink.net; scg-list at tiger.skiblack.com; 'Duanne Luckow';
'Bruce Schug'
Cc: 'Robert Landers'
Subject: Re: [SCG] Good news about 1966-9 concours tires

Mark--don't make assumptions! Nothing has been committed to at this point.
And your feedback is similar to other feedback Duanne received after I sent
this email. Seems like there are different considerations to balance and
that may take some time to sort out.

For example, the VCCA, an organization that some people would like to show
their cars in, does not allow anything but factory stock type tires. So,
that would mandate bias ply construction... But I know too little about
tires to say whether a radial tire can be made to look like a bias ply.

And yes, I have a car too that I like to keep as stock as possible (my
yellow convertible) but drive it regularly, so I want radial tires for that
car. But it's not clear whether we have to go to Coker for them... For
example, Larry Claypool has apparently found a source again for 185/80 13s
with a 5/8" whitewall, which is just after we had almost concluded they
weren't available anywhere now.

--Kent