Hot Rods Were mismatched white walls ever period correct?

Being a broke-*** hotrodder has always been period correct. Run what you can afford.

I do think that it would be more correct (or easier to explain) to see white walls up front with black wall drag tires out back. I like white walls. Have them on almost every old car I own...mostly because you don't see them on new cars.

 

If you look through actual pictures taken in the late 50's and early 60's lots of cars ran mismatched wheels and different styles of tire, especially racers. The explanation I always got was, you'd have a separate pair of wheels with racing tires to swap onto the back, and take back off before street driving, so at the drags, mismatched wheels were common, and a few guys did it to look like racers.

I will say though, wide whites in general look out of place on that new of a car. I can understand the thinking that the driver would run whatever they could afford, but it would be odd to afford a nearly brand new Falcon in '64, have brand new Rader wheels on it which would have just come available, and run a tire that would have been a few years old on it.

In '64, on a '55 Chevy at the drags, it's possible you'd see a wide white slick, maybe the driver is trying to get the last few p***es out of an old set of tires. But a new car, with new wheels but fairly old tires, that feels odd. It's "period possible" I guess but seems unlikely.

 

One option is to get your new black walls for the front and turn the wide whites to the inside until they are used up.

I think 61 or 62 was the last year that new Corvettes came from the factory with wide whites.

 

Hell just having tires that held air was period correct.

 

Thanks again for all the replies. I typically read the articles here and keep my mouth shut, because I know Jack **** compared to most of you guys. I'm good with it and will keep reading.

As far as the car goes, I decided to flip the tires around to see how I like it. Boy, I should have done this months ago. Fits the car 100% better. Now I just need to find something that isn't $200+ a tire to replace the Korean Nexen front skinnies I'm running.

On a side note, 30 minutes after taking this picture I decided to diagnose and try to fix a sticking Holley carb needle/seat/float issue that was flooding the carb. Simple mistake almost burned it to the ground as a result of a backfire. After the gut check and change of underwear, I put it out by smothering it with a welding blanket. After then sitting down and staring at it for a while, i read a few manuals and watched a couple YouTube videos that got me back on track.

 

I ordered mismatched sidewalls without thinking about it, so to the best of my memory, they were perfectly period correct. ('59-'62 ?) I was going to build my '39 Chevy in a country-boy/ Thunder Road style as per my young uncle's '40. (Chevy Engine Orange)
I got "talked into" (easily) doing a street g***er by the owner of the shop that installed the engine. It's overly-awesome but eventually the black wheels and IFS will rule out.
I think (possibly) the mismatching was due to fact that they making narrower sidewalls and the wide ones were being phased out. So the new ones went on the front.

 

Neat falcon!

Seeing it both ways, it looks 100% better blackwalls.

Do fun stuff with your kiddo in the falcon. That is always period correct.

 

Looks great! enjoy the car and get some sleep.

 

Vast improvement! Glad to hear no real damage occurred from the fire. Been around two carb instigated fires and all I can say is, fire is very motivational. Had to use a dry chemical extinguisher on one of them. What a mess to clean up, but it saved the garage and house the garage was attached to.
-Dave

 

I liked it before. I really like it now!

 

Love them Falcons..!!! 40ragtopdown is right about "just hold'n air. I was 16, first car running 4 baldies.
Dad came home one day & said; looked at your tires lately ? Said yes sir & they're holding air real good. He says give me the keys till you get some decent tires. Took a while, i pumped gas & washed cars at a Pure station within walking distance.

 

Sweet ride .

 

Well show car points wise it may not win much with the whitewalls on the back and the black walls on the front. What I remember from when I was growing up is that lots of hot rodders did not have lots of cash to throw around you saw one of everything on the street.

Traditionally for me (not necessarily trad rod correct) I never really cared for whitewalls. More often than not whatever old hooptie I bought had skinny whites on it so blackwalls as fat as I could lay my hands on went on the rear. rear blacks and skinny whites on the front has been my personal style since about forever.

But that does not make it traditional at all just the way my cars usually ended up.

 

Love the Falcon! Typically I like blackwalls on white or light cars, whitewalls on dark cars, in general but not always. Yours is SO much better with the blackwalls. My 1st car 50 years ago was a '61 Falcon Dad and I shoehorned a 312 Y-block into. Wish it was still around. Or even had a picture of it.

Dave

 

That falcon looks great.