Need your opinion but first let me tell you what I am doing. Building a 32 Ford Sedan, 50's-60's style of car. Small block Chevy, 4speed, dropped axle, 40 Ford rear, stock deuce steering, etc etc. I want the bias ply look but the driveability of a radial. I have looked at these Excelsior's and they look ok, but will give me the ride I am looking for. Plan on taking some long trips. The bias ply are definately the look I am after but I dont want to be all over the road either. Anybody using these new tires? If, so, how are they? Should I just suck it up and go with a bias?
I have heard and read good things about the excelsiors. But I may add that I drove bias plys well into the '70s with good success as well. Actually if you consider my old motor cycle I drove or rode bias plys well into the '80s. I don't get this all over the road thing that everyone talks about. Maybe the thing is that if you grew up with bias plys you just don't notice it as much. I have nothing against radials either I don't think that they are better just different.
I think it's got to be younger guys that worry about the bias ply tires. I also grew up driving bias tires and we never even thought twice about them. Now, of course your car (front end anyway) has to be in good shape but I don't have a problem with them. That said if you've got to have radials the Excelsiors do look good in the pix.
I run Coker Classics on both my coupe and 32gals Roadster,they are radial but have a "traditional" look........drive like a dream
What kind of mileage do you put on them? I usually take two long trips per year, roughly 2300 miles each. Can I run 80mph with a bias and not have my butthole puckered up???
here's my experience for what it's worth. I had radials on a straight axle car and it drove like shit. Put nice bias plys on it was fine. likewise I had bias plys on my 53 chevy with a fatman mustang 2, I didn't like it. It drove much better on radials. we've discussed this topic before , don't fear the bias ply. Set your car up nicely and it will be great.
I'm running Excelsior bias tires on my Zipper. Ran through the rain with no problems at the Speedster Reunion in Lincoln.
I have Excelsior on my 32 roadster traditional style, and car drives fine up to 90 mph, tracks straight and easy on every road and is pleasanto to drive. Only thing I don't likle on the Excelsior are the giant radial scripts on the sides....they tried to recreate a early type rubber but put two inches high radial letters on the sides...makes no sense to me
I run Firestone bias plus on my 36 international, 34 3 window. Well iv been to bonneville nearly 6 times in it. We drive our cars all the way there and back whack is nearly a 7 hour drive and the bias ply tires do not track. I'm running the ribbed dirt track tires too. Iv put nearly 6-7 thousand miles on firestone deluxe champion bias plys and have had zero problems. Usually the wheel hop you get, when people think it's the bias tire, is a bent wheel! Iv talked to the rolling bones, Keith and Ken and know they had had troubles with their excelsiors in the past. Now those guys put the miles on!
When I switched from Bias to radials on the 48 in the early 70's the difference was quite noticeable. When I went from bias to radials on my 71 GMC the difference was a night and day difference in handling. Part of that though may have been taking about 50 lbs of unsprung wieght off each corner of the truck when I went from 16.5 split rims to 16x8 alloy rims. I worked for Firestone in the early 70's and sold a lot of bias tires. 4 new Deluxe Champion G70 x 15 tires for 100 bucks plus mounting and balance and stems Those tires were expected to last a max of 25,000 miles and with me that is the big rub with bias tires. You just flat don't get a lot of miles out of them. That might not mean anything to the guys who think driving 60 miles one way is a long trip and they only put a couple thousand miles a year on their rod or custom. To some of the rest of us though it means that we would have to put a set or more tires on the rig every year. I've got to say that a guy or gal needs to worry more about how he/she is going to use the car and what they expect out of it when they pick tires rather than worry 100% about what others think. If you want a totally period car that looks perfect to even the pickiest onlooker go bias. If you intend to do a lot of driving and want better tire mileage, fuel mileage and handling go radial. And I don't think that a car could look much better than Cruzr's coupe does no matter what tires were on it. That car is right on the money as far as looks go.
Here's one, just one reason people blame the tires. walrus from Gallagher oil farm checked these brand new drums. Yikes.
For me to run radials or to run bias plys is a non issue. I have a tendency to build '60s era cars and as soon as the Ol' Man could afford them he had Pirellis on the roadster. His thoughts on it was that his roadster should do as well as any import. He wasn't the only one in the bay area running either dunlops or pirellis on their hoopties at the time. I run what my wallet tells me to run or what my vehicle is set up to run. My Willys for instance runs 7.50x16 bias ply mud and snows. Reason number 1 is that I am running stock wheels, I doubt that they are a safty rim and being 4.5x16 it is pretty damned hard find a radial mud tire to go on it. reason number 2 has to do with cost, I could have changed wheels and purchased radial mud and snows for a whole lot more than the bias plys cost me. I will probably run radials of some sort on my hot rod stude, different vehicle different wheels and different budget. Ok I am way off base or off topic with this blather as I originally stated I have heard and read good things about the excelsiors.
I have never run bias so I am a little in the dark. Everything I have had in the past was a Coker wide whie so the look was good as well as the driveability. Seems like there really isnt a huge difference between when it come right down to it. I hear the horror stories about bias and like I said, I have never run them before. Thanks for the info
Out of round look at the dycum on the braking surface. Took me a minute to figure it out myself. 3deuce, A lot of what you hear comes from fellas who have had bad experience with bias ply tires. I isn't like it was 40 years ago when you could just run down to the local tire store and by them. It is very hard to find a good quality bias ply these days, lots of them are out of round etc. I have intercos on the Willys they are a good quality tire but I purchased them from a farm coop and got a real decent price on them. Radials have thier place in the performance world, if your suspension is set up for them you can't get a better cornering tire than a radial. That said you can make a car with bias plys corner like it is on rails as well, it just depends on setup and tire size. Carrol Shelby once put it this way when speaking of the original AC Cobra. He said that the original small block cars that took europe by storm had a stock chassis. It was flexable as hell and if you put a wide enough tire on it it would stick in any corner. We forget that there is a lot more to building these old cars than just screwing them together. Setup is the name of the game, just because a certain part has a certain name does not mean it will make you a super star you have to tune and tweek to get every bit out of it that you can.
I actually wiped my glasses to see if I could figure it out. A lot can be wrong with a car, I still find things that I never even considered before.
The Jalopy Journal
