Technical White Wall Tires on Rear Only? Poll

If you want the I took off my normal wheels to bolt on these mismatched drag race slicks/wheels for the day to go raceing look sure . Me personally I think it would look better with one or the other on all 4 corners .

Its more about what you like not the rest of the world.

 

I voted yes but I need to add an asterisk. On your model car I think the look is cool, paint worn and soot stained, every dime spent making it run as fast as possible, no money or a need to have 4 matching tires and wheels.

Your car has money spent on it. The tires may look of place because of the condition of the rest of your car. On the right ride, I think the WW slicks are just fine. Just my opinion. I like your car.

 

My first tires,for my 28A roadster,when I was a teen in the late 50s n ear;ly 60s; Were what I could find used with some* tread ,held air n size hight I was looking for> found in trash,behind tire stores n gas stations. Didn't give a crap about white wall or not,,,,beggers go with the luck.
For a little bit,I had black walls in rear,and fronts had white walls,were mounted inside out/spryed with BBQ black inside=just so it was a bit of a match.
After some time,I did find some rears with white walls,then later a pair of fronts with thin white walls=So depening on the time,I was whites or not.
Now days I run black walls all 4 on same old hotrod.
If it was a style thing,it was only for those with $$$$< an most of those did not build hotrods.

 

Works on late models, too. With skinny white walls.

 

What Rickybop said in Post #7 . . .
.

 

I had pie crust slicks back in the mid-sixties that I ran on my '57. They were whitewalls and I ran them facing out. I had both blackwalls in the front and at another time whitewalls in the front. It was pretty common to see at the tracks I raced at.

 

I like it, just do it!

 

I do it now and then , I have several sets of wheel and tires, If you like it , do it. Who cares what others think, it's your Hot Rod.

 

I'm not a big fan of whitewalls & blackwalls on the same car but it's your car and in that case my opinion should not matter. HRP

 

I had a guy checking out my T tell me nobody did that!

 

There are places n times,that some come from,that are not with the normal things going on mostly. I've been told things like that. I think there are maybe right about there smaller view. Some just make things up also,just give them room to think what they want to. I'm going on 84 YO,so I go back a little,an try to fill in,about some first hand,how it was done n add why,when I can.
I started building rods in the 1950s,in Miami Fla.< big town*,not at all secluded ,so lot of stuff going on with hotrods,customs n car shows.

 

There are successful field goal kickers in the NFL that wear two different shoes, we have all seen that. But if you can't kick a goal to save your life you may want to wear a matched set of Nikes and get some sponsorship dough before you end up at the McDonalds drive up window. How that correlates here I am not exactly sure. I hurt my back golfing, and I am taking Vicodin. It made perfect sense when I started typing it. Wait, what?

 

You might get very little sympathy for that around here. I hope you have learnt a lesson.........

.... Get well soon....

 

Hello,

Everyone will post an old photo showing a whitewall tire in front or back. That is done everywhere at one time or another. But, the majority will have blackwall tires all around. If and when one was used, it was a find in a garage to slap on a hot rod just so they could go somewhere.
We had several loose tires and yes, some whitewalls for towing only.

If we had a an old hot rod like a 32 5 window coupe, it would have fenders. But, since it is talking about a fenderless 32 coupe, the blackwall look is far superior to the white wall tire look. It does not matter, white wall tires are from the factory 50s sedans and that is where most found the look. My brother and I had a Model A Coupe we bought to be our first hot rod build. But, it was full fendered and was going to stay that way. It came with blackwall tires and also would have remained the black on black look, until we could afford some Halibrand Wheels.

Yes, the American Racing Equipment 5 spokes were the choice of drag race cars, but were not available for street use until much later. But, they were not white wall tires. Some of the original Gas Coupe/Sedan Class racers had whitewall tires as they emulated the stock factory cars and just opened the exhaust cut outs and ran at the drags. As time passed, there were Gas Coupe/Sedan cars that had whitewall tires but, most went to the all black tires/slicks and normal front tires to finish the look.

Jnaki

The cheater slick era of 1959-60s before they eliminated all of those classes we all liked and participated with out street daily drivers, brought on the slicks type tires for sale that had a groove or two to qualify as a street tire. The grooves did not help in all weather times, as the slicks were still the main surface and lots of hydroplaning took place. Before most just got rid of those slicks with whitewall tires due to the dangers for daily driving.

Our 1940 Willys Coupe in the background used different tires for towing to the drags. Then we changed over to better blackwall tires for the front and all black Bruce slicks in the rear, under the fender opening. Black rims and black tires.

As you can see, the most popular cheater slick was marketed by Moxley slicks from Arizona. They looked good, did improve some E.T. times and looked like normal tires on the street for any encounters away from the dragstrip. But, they were also the main cause of hydroplaning and when it got foggy or a light wet surface on the street, it was 10 mph and caution was the mode of the day or night.
Moxley Cheater Slick
The company had tons of whitewall slicks as they wanted to be like the front tires in stock looks with a slight advantage by being slicks in disguise.

Note:

For most of the teenagers, if one had a sedan of any kind, those white wall tires were immediately turned around until the wear was low enough to buy new blackwall tires. So, for a long time, most had whitewall tires turned around. That was less expensive and unless one found a kid that wanted new whitewall tires from the factory for his car, which was rare, they were used until worn. In a week or so of daily driving, the inside whitewall tires turned dark and soon matched the undercarriage.


Our own teenage hot rods and sedans were all blackwall tire daily drivers. Some with whitewalls turned around. But anytime a new set was purchased, they were black on black. Unless the only way a specific tire was purchased is if they came with redlines. Inglewood Tire Company brand of Pos-A-Traction tires were good treads, long lasting, wide and less expensive than most factory brands. YRMV.

 

I’ve been known to do it, either way; on occasion:

 

All depends on what portion of the vehicle you want to draw attention to.

 

If you look at most of the cars above that have WW/BW combos, they are builds like Dana referred to. You put on what you could beg, borrow or steal. When you only spent $400 building your car, you really didn't care about the tires. I'm too am in my 80s and I was there. The cars that Moriarity shows work well because the rear tire becomes part of the body color/contour and since there is no rad, the small black walls get lost. For the same reason it works on dragsters but on a hot rod, I prefer all blacks.
Warren

 

Hey Bowie. bring that hot rod to Hummelstown, May 16, show at the park. would love to see you and the coupe there.

 

Seems like there is a difference between the whitewalls we had in the 60’s and the ones we have on tires today. Like the ones for the model A’s, they get brown and are very hard to clean up back to white. Back in the 60’s, some Wesley’s bleechwhite and they would be bright.

 

Wesley's seems to have changed some of the ingredients in it. It no longer works the way it used to. That was always the go to cleaner to get either whitewalls or raised white letter tires nice and white.

 

Well like you, my first real driving on the street tires were just that. Tires. Held air for the most part, went around in a circle and went from here to there. To spice things up, we painted two wheels with white wall paint on one side and on the other side left them black. From the side of the road, they were WW and on the center line of road, BW. Later to spice things up we used 4 different hub caps. Personally, white wall hard wall slicks look kind of early 60's. But then that is where I was from anyway. We did paint one with Blue enamel house paint.

Remember "cheater slicks" on the street ?? I remember was early 1969 the fuel rail and funny car guys at OCIR would occasionally give us their burned out Wrinkle Wall slicks. Ever try to drive on the public street while running real wrinkle wall slicks ?? Looked cool for about 1 hour. After that we could not even drive down the street for a load of tacos. But it was fun.

 

I still have a bottle of Wesley's I purchased in 1995 at PB. At least I recall it its Wesley's but whitewall bleach. Have not used it since then however. Does a good job though. Some narrow stripe white walls on my Dad's Buick.

Does anyone remember the "Micky Mouse White Wall" add on's ? Western Auto and Pep Boys specials. Bump a curb and they would either rip or warp and then go flap flap while driving down the road. So you had to add on some curb feeler wires. SCRAPE !

 

The first modification I did on the first two cars I owned was to turn the tires to black walls. The first car had three miss matched tires only three were white walls and the second car had all white walls. That’s what auto shop was for.

 

Nothing says "Hot Rod" better than mismatched tires/wheels/whitewalls, etc.
Same/same X4 is anti-hotrod.