Hot Rods Wheel Width history question - when did they start getting wider?

Thank you to those who have responded, I'm enjoying the historical information. Perhaps a follow-up question would be...

Did most HAMB era warmed up street cars, hot rods & customs mostly use the same rim & tire size at all four corners? I'm aware of the 'big & littles', but I'm asking more about the staggered sizing in terms of rim width & tires.

 

I worked for Sears slinging tires while in college. The Allstate was by far the crappiset tire on earth. And people would put them on big cars...

 

@gotta56forme nice hubcaps on your 56…

in 1962

Hello,

Despite what current photos of any odd size tires are on custom cars or hot rods, we always used the stock configuration tires. Usually in the 14 inch size for the 58 Impala. The main reason was that those tires got plenty of miles as whitewalls at first, but then we all turned inward, the whites and now had backwalls to give a better contrast to the car.

We fiddled with painted wheels and various hubcaps. Our goal was to have a fast car and money saved would be used to keep it fast. Not, buy fancy rims, although if possible, when they came out for street usage, we did want some American Racing 5 spoke wheels. But, on stock size rims.
Early years, Bruce Slicks on the rear for timed runs before class eliminations...at Lion's Dragstrip.

The only time we used a different rim or tire was when we changed over the rear stock tires to our 7 inch wide Bruce Slicks on 15 inch Chevy rims.

The majority of the old 1957-64 hot rods and custom sedans all ran stock size rims and tires. There was no need for larger rear tires, one reason was the necessity to get the speedometer re-calibrated to fit the readings vs the larger rims or tires. For our Saturday drag strip timed runs or the late weekend 58 Impala teenage cruising days, or when the word was out that the Cherry Avenue Drags was going to happen with some new cars, did we leave the Bruce Slicks on for the evening’s activities.

Jnaki

We were now older and wiser, money was still a factor in car/hot rod spending. So, when I sold the Impala and Flathead Sedan Delivery for college, I also needed a new car to get me there and back. The 1965 red El Camino was born near where I was going to go to college in the San Francisco Bay Area.

But when I got the El Camino, the stock tires instantly got turned inside out. They needed tire truing, spin balancing and wheel alignment over the measly factory specs. But, I was a stickler for smooth handling and straight away driving. My college apartment was at least 400 miles of highway miles away and another 400 when I came home for the holidays. The tires stayed stock 14 inch size, front and rear.

After the stock tires wore themselves out, I got a complete set of Inglewood Posatraction Red Line Tires all around, in the 14 inch size. The odd thing was, the Inglewood Tire Company wanted my stock Firestones as they were considered the best for making them into the larger Redline Posatraction tires. So, I had turned in my worn, stock Firestone tires and had the new Posatraction tires mounted on the Chevy rims.

The stock 14 inch factory tires were new and supposedly round, like new tires should be. But, after shaving them and a complete spun wheel balancing/wheel alignment work out, they drove like a straight arrow and tracked in any road surface with ease. These new Inglewood wide Posatraction Redline tires were all the same size and fit perfectly. But, those 4 also got the extra tire shaving for roundness and expert wheel spin balancing and alignment.

The wider tires still fit on normal rims, but allowed me to easily go over desert dirt roads and loose sand wash crossings with ease. Once round, the wider tires were a perfect fit. But, they were all the same size. Our philosophy was since we loaded the back with two 250cc desert racing motorcycles and stuff, we needed great handling and driving characteristics. If we got a flat, we certainly did not want a odd size replacement spare with all of the weight already loaded in the back bed.

Note:

The one thing about the wider tires on the stock rims, was that in the early stages of a local rainstorm or drizzle, the roads were slick from moisture on the dropped oil from leaking cars. I had to be careful as the wider tires tended to lift and do some hydroplaning on the initial water on the road surfaces.

But, letting off on the gas, brought the car back to good traction on the wet roads, as well as going slower. Even my wife learned the technique of slowing down the speed without braking to get the hydroplaning back down to the surface for traction.

All 1965 El Camino car/trucks came with the factory air shocks in the rear, there was no need to get larger tires and rims, just for the back two tires. Stock rims, good traction tires and great balancing/alignment were the keys to long lasting drives all of the time. We went through several other sets of tires in the 11 years of ownership and 125,000 miles of trouble free road trips. YRMV