White letter tires on 50s cars (pics) Please

White letters got a place, but not on anything Hamb friendly (excepting those Indy roadsters above).

 

I'll bite! This was my dads 56!

I don't doubt that there may be a better wheel and tire combo out there but it just worked! IMO!

 

Thats cool come on guys come out. Don't be afraid you no you have them. Oh yeah more smart coments Please

 

I have white letters on the rear of my 54 but they are facing into the fender well.

 

...I don't even like black letters on blackwall tires!

 

Nice street machine!

 

White letter tires look cool when they are ground down into white walls.

 

Sacrilicious...

 

i love raised white letters on just about everything except maybe on a pre 50's luxury car then it should have wide whites

my 57 will have white letters on it its mine ill do what i want

 

heres alink to apic of the new look of my gf's 50 pontiac took the ugly wide whites off of it right after she bought it the "new" part is the paint painted it last month
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a148/69runner383/janets%2050%20pontiac/the%20new%20look/DSCN2636.jpg

 

Raised white letters look just fine on fifties cars, as long as the car has other appropriate accessories. Like curb feelers, chrome mudflaps and
fuzzy dice for instance...Don't forget the nodding dog on the package shelf...

 

Raised white letters look fine on late 60's/70's muscle cars. They also look ok on tri five Chevy's IF it looks like the car was built in the muscle car era. To me, it all depends on what era you're building the car to look like it was built in.

Of course, this is the wrong web site for that type of build.

Doc

 

I think you guys are off on the wrong rail. Lots of show cars and rod in the late 50's and 60's had white letter tires,NOT raised white letters. We had white tire crayons made by companies like Cal Custom and we paint in the letters we wanted to show off.

 

I'm in LOVE!!!! Thanks for posting this one

 

Like the old Drag 500 slicks I'm trying to sell

 

Only if you're also rolling with bell-bottom pants, platform shoes and body shirts with giant collar points (think Starsky & Hutch era....)

 

Fair Enough! I'd say my dad had no intention of building a "traditional" hot rod!

 

Maybe it would look better with some redlines...

 

Maybe...

 

I painted these myself.

 

This is what makes the Hamb so great!!! Guy ask for pics and 3 pages later.....still no pics.

 

As ugly as white letter are. At least they aren't "DUBS" I have a buddy thats building a '49 Stude on a bagged s10 Ch***is with 24's... I just don't get it.

Actually, I guess it's him that doesn't get it.

 

Some avatars have 20" 'mags'. The white letter deal is street machine territory.

 

I got out some old magazines looking for old pictures of 50s cars with white letter tires...and came up empty. I didn't get into the 80s mags yet, I guess thats when they became popular, like several have mentioned.

My memory isn't what it should be.

 

When I was living in Tennessee white letter tires where all the rage with the local NASCAR crowd

 

True...if you don't count posts 9, 11, 20, 32 & 38.

 

There is a show called ANDYS on here from the 60s-70s They had white letter tires on 32s was that wrong????? LOL

 

Yes. Yes it was.

 

I've been doing a little research on this topic – I'm curious if white painted tire letters is a nouveau-trad phenomenon, or if it was actually popular in the 50s/60s before raised white letter tires were available. Since this thread originally didn't result in many (if any?) old photos of hot rods with painted white lettered tires, I've added a few I found on Kustomrama. Please add more examples if you know of any other old hot rods that had the letters on the tires painted.

 

Don't mind the older small lettering, not fond of the later bold type.