Technical Do folks collect really old tires?

I came across this really old, and unusual Firestone Gum Dipped 6.70-15 tire. Never used. Obviously it was intended to serve a taxi cab. It is heavy and well-built, most likely to survive rough city streets.
If you’ve been to the America on Wheels car museum in Allentown, PA they have the taxi used in the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”- where the thoughtful taxi driver stops Jimmy Stewart (George Bailey” ) from jumping into the icy river near the mystical Beaver Falls. The taxi is an original from the Yellow Cab Company- a part of GMC trucks.
Maybe I’ll donate it!

 

It always surprises me when something as mundane as a tire survives all these years brand spanking new .

it’s a tire , nothing special when new , a product designed for a purpose , to wear out and be discarded . What happened , what’s the story that this tire not only survived but survived in new condition ?
You would think at some point it would have simply been installed on a car , a boat dock , a tire swing , dog chew toy !!

nothing at all special about this tire when it was new . Finding it now, in the shape it’s in …. Pretty damn cool .

 

@Moriarity has an old tire.

 

I have some old tires but they are not NOS. A couple of them are really old Non Skid tires. Wall hangers.

Dave

 

This well surviving model T tire found me a while ago. “PHARIS ROADGRIPPER CORD”. Apparently I’m a couple generations too late to fight over the family fortune…

 

There is a whole thread somewhere here ***led "show your old tire " or something similar.

 

Wrong movie ***le, but here's an interesting link:

 

Some people collect tires, others are just tired of hoarding sh!t

 

I had this one for a while. Sold cheap at my auction. Only one I've ever seen.

 

I keep these hanging around, mostly because racer-x wants them, but I don't want to ship them to Wisconsin.

 

What causes old tires to get hard? Is it something at the molecular level? Seriously, what in the aging process causes them to get so hard? On another thought, I was always told to not store tires near any electric motor due to the ozone emitted by them which causes tires to age pre-maturely.

 

A little more trivia; the "thoughtful taxi driver" named Ernie was played by Frank Faylen, who was later to gain fame with us older folks by playing Dobie Gillis' long suffering father, Herbert T. Gillis, owner of Gillis's Grocery on the "Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in the late fifties and early sixties. He was a veteran of WWII "The Big One" as was verified by his appearance in the end of "Yankee Doodle Dandy", where he asks James Cagney's character George M. Cohan if he doesn't remember his own songs.

As to tires : in the 1980's I was at a business meeting at the Cargill Inc. main office. There, in the lobby, was a 6.00-16 tire prominently labelled "Cargill", with a placard saying that it was made of soybeans as a replacement for rubber during WWII. It was very deteriorated, which indicated to me that it was not a successful subs***ution.

 

Old good condition race tires bring big money from restorers for museum cars. I imagine other OE tires also would bring good money to someone restoring a car to trailer queen day 1 condition.

 

I’d like to sell them but who knows?Firestone Bonneville 820-15’s never mounted

 

I should have known Mark would collect old tires, amazing collection! HRP

 

I forgot a couple oher old tires! I have the original Ford tire that was the spare for my '40 Ford Tudor. 6.00x16 and also have an old Fisk tire 32x4.

Dave

 

Curios, collectors and if OE for some expensive old car. The rest are a waste of space for almost everyone, but make sure you've got at least one to toss in the bed before you drop the engine in!
A set of rollers in the sizes you want are handy, too.

 

Yes, especially old Wards Riverside and Firestone tires.
















Still looking for some 6.00-18 Firestone Indy half treads and some 17" and 18" Wards Riverside in a few tread patterns and sizes!