Hi does anybody knows something about the wheels on the pics?? A friend of mine bought them and want to use them on a Hot Rod he builds. TIA Michael
Saw a few sets in the seventies with the really *****in' tires they were made special for. Originally they were used on a few coorporate "dream cars" and the think they may have been used on Stutz Blackhawks like the ones Elvis owned. Are they really only 3 inches wide?
Maybe the wheels are that skinny because those tires have that cool scalloped shoulder that goes out before it meets the side wall. That's the part I leked was the tire that matched the wheel. Super custom!
So its the tire tha's unsafe? You could out a narrow tire on thre wheel and be alright? I hate to say it but the new Stutz looked like a Pontiac and I don't even remember it. They must not have built very many and spent zero dollars marketing to the general public. The wheels do look good though.
Deja Vu.. I think I see a pattern forming hmmm, might just be Deja Vu... wait, didn't I just say that???
I remember them also, firestone took them off the market about the same time they released them for sale, firestone has had so many failures and recalls over the years. I'm amazed their still in business. I tried to buy a set that the local dealer got stuck with. answer was no He told me if I wanted them i'd have to dig the slashed tires out of the dumpster and the wheels would not accept any standard tire
I saw the Elvis' Stutz with those wheels in Toronto at the R&M Auction. The only other car I've ever seen them on was a 1969 "Farago CF428" which is an Italian custom bodied Pontiac. If you do a google image search there are a few pictures of it. Looks a bit like a Lambo/ Maserati of the era. Stu
They are indeed from the 1969 Stutz Blackhawk. I had a set of these I bought on Ebay and I bet this is the other set that was on Ebay a few months ago and they sold for under $200. I bought mine about five years ago because they were listed as 17x3.5 wheels and I thought they'd make killer frontrunners. I couldn't find any info on the wheels but when I researched the tires, I found the same info that JimA showed ya. So I called the Firestone and they wouldn't even talk about them. Then I called the Stutz family. They put these wheels on five cars according to Stutz. One is still in the museum and four others where sold, two of them to Elvis Presley. They put me in touch with the guy that owned Elvis old car and he wanted the wheels pretty badly so I sold them to him. He was in New Jersey as I recall. They were supposed to be revolutionary runflat tires but Elvis was apparently a wild driver, according to these guys, and he was able to run the tire right off of the rim when cornering. Imagine that. Rolling a 7 inch tire off of a 3.5 inch rim. Who would have thought it? Anyway, legend has it that the T-bird Kelsey Hayes wire wheels were recalled and additional spokes added because of Elvis and his ability to Taco the original ones. The K-H story I am not sure is true but I felt pretty confident about these wheels.
I'm interested in this. I got my information from the folks at Stutz that they only made five sets of these wheels (20 wheels). Obviously that isn't true. I can't imagine running those on the Daytona. No matter what, they are rare and still should be unsafe with the Firestone tires but I wonder if you couldn't just run a skinny 17" tire on them.
I've seen two maybe three full sets with tires at Texas swap meets over the past few years, so I know they made more than 20 wheels total. I had no idea they were that skinny without the tires, however.
Hmmm...the wheels rock and the two times I've seen them for sale, they were advertised as trailer wheels. I wonder if Firestone tried to market them that way. Firestone didn't want to help me at all as this was apparently quite an embarr***ment for them. I do know that the wheels were indeed used on the 1969 Stutz and that only five cars recieved them. But obviously the other information I've received is faulty and these were somehow sold elsewhere too. I do recall reading that the L**Xi tires were runflat designs that didn't work which still seems obvious to me when you put a 7 inch tire on a 3.5 inch rim but I ain't no tire scientist. I'd love to know the real story now.
Are these wheels Magnesium? If so -coupled with the roll off tires-they shouda just installed a fuse to help em off!
If Firestoned{oops,theres no "D" }is so imber***ed by these wheels, maybe somebody could get thedesign rights to them and repop them in a normal width.{DAMN! Ijust gave away another money makeing idea to someone else!}They would look really cool in a deep dish style R.R.
I have a set of those wheels but they are 16 x 3.5 . Im going to run them in the front of my 32 with 450 x 16 firestones. I bought them from kirk a few years back on ebay. Danny
They look very similar to Kelsey Hayes Magstars like on 1970 Mercury Merauders. I wonder if KH stole the design from them. Cool wheels though! I would guess the bolt pattern was GM since the Stutz was built on a GM platform.
there's a set on ebay now, i think they've been listed before. i like the idea of using 'em on a bonneville car.. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/VINT...TruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessoriesQQsalenotsupported
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