<VV> Re: Michelins and swing axles folklore

[N. Joseph Potts]

I installed four Allstate radials (Michelins in drag) on my 61 Monza in 67.
This business about the tubes sounds familiar. That car went sideways twice,
once on a wet, slick highway, and once on a curvy neighborhood street
(possibly also wet) the night it died (violently). No one seriously injured.

Joe Potts
Miami, Florida USA
1966 Corsa coupe 140hp 4-speed with A/C

Before I got my drivers license me and my car buddies would con the one
driver into going looking at sports car dealers and bother the sales guys
and customers with our questions and expert opnions.
I remember a  boisterous Porsche salesman talking to us about driving his
(swing axle) 356 fast.  I asked what he thought about Michelin tires.  He
suddenly got very quiet, and may even have gone a little pale.  He said
something about steel belted radials not providing much warning, and hugged
himself as if cold, and muttered something about decreasing radius corners..
A few years later I put a camber compensator on my (very used) posi-traction
63 Spyder the first week I got it because I got it good and sideways in 45
mph traffic on a Flint Michigan peripheral highway. It was the first time I
yanked the steering wheel like I had done all the time when driving my
clapped out MGA on junkyard Michelins.  The bias plies got replaced with
(fabric belted) Dunlop SP41 radials (one pair per week 'cause that's all I
could afford) shortly thereafter. Then it was a marvelously predictable car
that could be driven deep into corners on trailing throttle and just kind of
hunkered down when given lots of gas when pointed nearly straight.  Scared
myself by scaring the buzzards out of the trees driving along the twisty
coastal California the summer of 1969.