Wheels and tires .....What would you do?

Lookin for some ideas on wheels and tires on my 32' Hiboy roadster (the one in my avatar) . It has some knock off Halibrand's on it now. Those are getting the ax. Im kinda diggin the 60's street / strip car look . Thank's Mayor of G-Vegas

 

the Chrome rally's I have for sale on here! lol J/K
Cant go wrong with OE style chrome's...or reversed...
Thats what I just bought for my coupe.

I think the knock offs look good too...why not skinny knocks up front and some bias plys?!

 

I think unclescooby has the hot setuo for your old roadster in the cl***ifieds. Radir cheaters and bias whitwalls for the front on old chrome reverse wheels.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=540832

This is not spam I just happened onto this while looking for something else.

 

You have the perfect wheels on your roadster now. Halibrands are about as 60's as it gets. I don't know anyone who owned a hot rod in the 60's that didn't aspire to have Halibrands on it. One of the most admired and lusted after wheels in hot rod history and you want to **** can them???


I ran these from '62 on.

 

And on the street in '64.................

 

Steel reversed in either chrome or painted......never ages!!!

 

Chrome reverse wheels on front with pinner whites & polished, magnesium Americans on rear with cheater slicks....
Ton's of cars in '60's had mismatched wheels.....

 

This IS the '60's look , and you already have it . It seems that what you want is to be accecpted by the m***es of the current style trend. If you're going to get rid of the Halibrands , I'm sure it won't be hard to do .

 

Only because they were waiting for the next paycheck saving to buy the other pair of matching wheels. Been hot rodding since 1959, and mis matched wheels were never a fashion statement. This is another mis conception like primered cars were cool "back in the day". Same deal. The owner was saving up for a shiney lacquer job to finish his car.

 

When you say "knock off" can I ***ume you mean copies? Slotted mags were fairly well in vouge back then but the tire choice would complete the gig. Most slotted wheels were satin finished and if yours are lower priced "knock offs" then spinnin em under a scotchbrite pad may be the answer.

 

Listen to Dean - He knows what he's talking about ~ He was there!!!!!

 

Maybe...but then there are a bunch in CAR SHOW coverage from BITD....that, and many guys had an exra set of rear wheels for the drags, and left them on during the week....
I WASN'T there...but have a TON of old car mags and pics from all over the country...and mismatched wheels is traditional as ****....

 

Like Dean said, the guys that didn't have them wanted them, they are a "Cl***ic Look".

 

I thought I could get by with these .............but I saved my money and bought the real thing.

 

My vote is to keep those wheels you have and get paint gloss for a finished well built look.
By the way MOW which tire sizes you have?

 

So, you believe that, back when, guys with a set of Hals were wanting to trade them for a mismatched set of steelies? Nope. Dig, if you had high buck stuff, you weren't looking to appear cheap. Dean Lowe is talking about REAL traditional style, not 21st century trad style. Totally different concept. It was the present, not the past through rose tinted gl***es.

 

Mismatched wheels? Nope. The only mis-matched wheels on cars that I remember were on cars being driven to the tire store to get a matched set on their ride. The Halibrand's that you are currently running set it apart from the wannabes, and will always be a perfect set-up on that car. Timeless.

 

NO.....a guy who ALREADY had a set of the most $$ wheels wasn't switching to mismatched...jesus...UNLESS he was a racer. Who swaps the TIRES on their wheels every time they go to the track??? And 10 spokes don't match five windows...haha.
BUT, not EVERYONE had the $$$ for Halibrands (then OR now) and GOD-FORBID, some guys don't even like 'em...so mismatched wheels, admit it or not, is traditional....not a 21st "style"....
Doesn't anybody read OLD magazines when building their cars today???
Get yerself some '59-66 magazines, not TRJ....the PROOF is right there....I don't think PHOTOSHOP had been invented yet

 

Well, in the '50s, modified cars were pretty rare. So, some ugly **** made magazines, but only as filler. Some truly heinous stuff existed back then, but what we strive for here on the HAMB are the high points. Or at least, a lot of us do.

 

Thanks for tryin' Phil. Might as well give it up. We all know magazines are the undisputed source for history. Us old ****s don't know ****.

 

It's strange when people prefer to make a sole interpretation of history based on some photos seen in old magazines instead of the accounts of actual participants, many whose cars WERE the ones being covered in the old magazines.

Guys, do what you want with your own cars. Nothin' wrong with that. However, some of these "older" guys trying to offer advice here ARE the ones that were on the cutting edge of hot rodding in the late 50s and early 60s, especially Dean. He was there as much as it was humanly possible to be there. As important as photo research is, it makes no sense to discount what an actual participant says. Magazines have always had photos of cars that were exceptions to the "rules", but that doesn't mean they were the norm.

My 2 cents worth.

 

You can't be the look of original Halibrands IMHO. BUT, if you have some "knock off"/not original ones to me they just aren't the same. Maybe to some they are close enough, but if you are really into the originals and they way they look you can tell right away they aren't and it's just not the same. I'd love to have a set of originals for my truck - maybe someday. Until then steelies will do as I can't seem to find any other aluminum ones I like enough to invest in. Ultimately it's your call and what looks good to you and matches the "theme" of your entire car. The first few pics on this thread are it!!: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=523234

 

Hey, if you look hard and long enough through old magazines you can justify just about any **** you want as being "traditional".

A few years back I took my Dad, who ran with the Glendale Sidewinders back in 47-48, to a Hot Rod show. There was a bunch of Rodent cars and what many on here try to p*** off as "traditional". He commented on the fact that back in his day if a guy had showed up with stuff that was intentionally made to look like junk, or even stuff that looked like the guy didn't really care, they'd run em off and laugh at em so hard they'd be too embarr***ed to show up with it again until it was at least decent.
Primer was temporary while you were saving up for paint or the body work was finished. Mexican blankets didn't last long in a car cuz no girl wanted to ride around on that **** and mismatched wheels on a street driven hot rod said "I can't afford the wheels I want yet"

 

"He commented on the fact that back in his day if a guy had showed up with stuff that was intentionally made to look like junk, or even stuff that looked like the guy didn't really care, they'd run em off and laugh at em so hard they'd be too embarr***ed to show up with it again until it was at least decent"

I like your Dad Don.

 

Look...the HAMB is all about trying to recreate our cars as they were back in '40's, '50s, and 60's...
Guys back in the '60s were also trying to "look" the part, especially when it came to drag racing, where many cars had mismatched wheels, so installing a set of mags on the back of yer steelie equipped car was a "look"...drag racing was a big influence....
Am I the only guy here who beleives this ****??? So if something was ACTUALLY done bitd, even though YOU don't like it now, it's not traditional???

Are these cars not tradtional? Or were the owners just too poor???

I'm confused........ Sorry fellas...I must be dillusional.......

Mismatched Halibrands are still that...MISMATCHED.
The brown A coupe was a street car....had a very mild SBC...

 

Actually I was there and what I recall about street/strip cars is that they run what they could afford. often the wheels were mis-matched.

Now we are striving to build the best that we can and so I have to agree if you were building a show quality or magazine quality car that the absolute best wheels were a must.

That said I like the repop Halibrands but they are aluminum wheels and just look wrong in my eyes. That is not to say that I deslike them they just don't look like Halibrands, even polished they don't look the same as polished Halibrands from back in the day.

BTW I'm building a true '60s style G***er (early '60s) what would have been considered a street strip car and its getting painted steelies, unless I get rich then I am going to lean towards Americans. But I'm going to have to get real rich between now and when that happens I'm afraid.

 

Bad examples if you are trying to make a case for "Street" driven cars and Steelies.
The yellow RPU has Halibrands all around
The Orange Coupe is a Drag car and 12 spokes without brakes were light so used for racing and obviously there isn't a 12 spoke rear so the combo was accepted
The 5 window is going for the exact same thing as the Orange coupe.
Orange Crate had very early Halibrands as well and the larger rears had windows the skinny fronts do not, still all Halibrands

 

This is too funny. Someone who was not there telling someone who was there and did it! As far a mismatched goes, I was thinking it had to do with the rims. Form and function and cost. Yes my car is flat black--for now. One day it will get a real paint job, but for now my money goes in to parts, not paint.

 

Spindle mount halibrands are not a mismatch. Slicks mounted to any wheel that fit was pretty common while at the strip for a lot of budget guys. But on a street car, mismatched wheels were embarr***ing, so the owner came up with matching wheels very quickly.

 

I'm not "telling" him anything....just saying, that guys DID in fact, run around the streets with mismatched wheels (maybe just not in California ), whether they were saving up or not for the others....sometimes **** comes up waiting for next paycheck, and ya end up running the "mismatched" wheels longer than expected....
Maybe where Dean lived no one would dare run mismatched wheels.

I base all this **** off of looking at old pics, not just the feature car but the cars in the background, and from what my poor, old timer hotrodder freinds and family tell me....of course, they are all old, so maybe they forgot what was really done.
It was common.........and why my POS project will have mismatched wheels....

Damn I need a drink........who's in????