55 Dude your memory is correct. Where I lived in Phoenix ,AZ, Enco stations had re-badged to Exxon and the change was completed by early 1972. I remember as that was my first year in high school & I hated the name change. In 1995, I went to Canada for the first time & was almost immediately thrown into time warp as I see the name ESSO is still very much alive & well up there, 30+ years after I had last laid eyes on one (except for those in the movies). Also for a few years (up to about 1975) we also had several Husky stations in Phoenix & I would find out in Canada that they are big up in Canada. More time warp, lol.
hey Mike--I forgot all about Humble until now--thanks for jogging my memory as I remember several of them when growing up. I can picture at least 2 of them crystal clear as if its 1965 now.
Reading these on this board & sharing the memories is awesome & jogs my memory even more. Only a week ago I stumbled onto a one-horse gas & diesel stop that still had non-digital 1960s-era pumps working (the owner knows how to fix them & has spare parts if needed) & age-wise, he's relatively young still.
I figured I'd dig up this old thread. I just bought a pair of NOS Atlas Bucrons for the back of my Period Correct Super Stock Fairlane. I think they will be the crowning touch for the car!!!
I put Bucrons on the rear of my '59 Biscayne fulie back in '60-61. Raced on the street and Islip L.I. drags. They were the only way to get any traction on that poor track. Also an inexpensive tire as I remember.
I remember in the 60s we had fina gas stations that sold all the atlas brand products.still have a jug of antifreeze from them I bought sometime in that time I can not remember when it changed to esso I believe
All this talk... has anyone actually petitioned Coker or any other vintage tire mfg. for repops? Softest rubber, HAMB drags, Billetproof drag, vintage drag approved for the "stock" classes? Wouldn't that be a hoot! And some vintage waterslide decals to flush out the whole deal! Gary
I didn't read all 4 pages, but did anyone mention Bucrons didn't leave black marks, but tiny clumps of rubber ?
439911.jpg 439911.jpg by bowie posted Jan 13, 2013 at 8:23 PM I get black marks out of mine,darker ones on cement. As a side note , the cheapy line for Atlas tires were Mile Pak; hard as a rock compared to Bucrons.
Yep, Atlas was a semi-independent company that produced tires, batteries, and other parts/accessories for the various 'Standard Oil' companies after the original was busted up. Most of what they sold was top-drawer. More here... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/chevron-atlas-parts.597041/
I had a set of 9:50 X 15's (I think) that traveled in the trunk of all my street racers. If I sold the car or traded it; it never left me with the Bucrons on it!. Sometime back in the day that dual stripe was the only indication that the guy that just challenged you had his shit together! I lived very close to a tire shop...I worked there as a young teen. They paid me in Bucron take-off's which I sold or traded for hotrod parts!
Those appear to be Atlas "Plycrons" which were similar to the Bucrons, but I don't remember the difference....been too many years ago. I do remember a friend of mine running them on his '66 SS396 Chevelle back in the day. They did have pretty good traction for street tires. He worked at his uncle's Esso (Exxon) station in Austin.
My uncle Cliff owned a Amoco gas station in Hapeville Ga. He called my mother one day and told her to let my brother and myself know he had some of those tires we liked. I had a hand me down 57 new yorker 4 door hardtop, hemi of course. It ran well against all the bad chevys then because of those bucrons. We had several pull offs so we mounted some on chevy wheels and used them on Froggies Gto. We heard about Royal pontiac coming to the Atlanta Speedshop dragway so we took the gto there and ran against their car for stock eliminator. We won against their car that day! We carried the bucrons in the trunk and changed them with a bumper jack because we didnt want to wear them out. The Royal Pontiac people didn't know about them and were laughing at our bumper jack!
I think KoolKat-57 hit the nail on the head. I'd bet those have the typical rock hard type rubber compound compared to the soft "pencil eraser" Bucrons. All in all a real cool score.
I bought them at a Standard station. I remember our track required all 4 tires to match in Pure Stock class. I had to buy two pair but they won a lot of races.
Yep, those aren't Plycrons. Plycrons (full name 'Plycron Cushionaire' until belted tires appeared) had a 'conventional' tread design and became their 'medium' line tire when bias-belted tires were added to the line. Plycron 2+2s were the 78-series, and the 'HP' was the top-of-the-line 70-series. Those HPs would go 60K+ miles with a bit of care (I know one guy who got 80K out of a set), but were totally snaky in the rain. When Atlas discontinued the Bucron in the early 60s, they came out with an 'economy' tire (the name escapes me now) that were mostly sold to VW Beetle owners, as those were the only cars that could get decent mileage out of them. In the early 70s they then added their first in-house-designed radial, the ill-fated 'Cushionaire' that ended up with them eating most of them on warrantee. After that, most Atlas tires were just rebranded from another manufacturer.
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