VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1949-1954 Size & Width of Whitewalls

I'm thinking about ordering a set of tires for my 51 Sedan. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to go with bias or radial, but I'm not really sure as to the proper width of the whitewall it self. Can someone please tell me what the original width was? Thanks

The original wite walls ran from 3 1/4" to about 3 1/2"....depending on the brand.
If you go with bias I would trcommend either the Firestone or Goodrich. They are two of the three brands GM used in 1951 and their white walls stay really white.

If the original WW tires were 3 1/4 -3 1/2 all I see on most sites are 2-1/2 or 2-3/4. What are most of the people running on the cars of the early 50's?

The 2 3/4" were used from 1953 and up.
I just replaced my 25 year old Firestones with the 3 1/4" new Firestones.
It depends on if you want to duplicate what the car would have been equipped with in 1951 or what you like the looks of.
White walls were only available for the first three months of production in 1951. By June they eleminated the spare tire.....due to the Korean War.

I have 6.70-15 BF Goodrich on my '48 and they are still very white after 15 years. But now I notice very small cracks in the whitewall and I think I'll replace them with a new set of the same early next year. And the tread is still good but it's down half way at 11000 miles. I don't want to take any chances with old tires...

I put 225/75/15 3.25" radial whitewalls (Firestone FR380) from Diamondback Classic Tire on my 1950 Convertible and the tires look just like the factory photo. Website: http://www.dbtires.com/catalog3.htm

Warning! They ain't cheap but they drive well and look good and are new production tires with a white rubber wall vulcanized to a new tire. In VCCA class judging they can dock you up to 4 points each since they are not bias ply tires.

Chevy Nut,
You mentioned that they discontinued the spare tire later in 1951. I bought my car from the Estate of the original owner on June 14th 2001 and he had bought it new on June 14th, 1951 I have all the original papers with it. The only option the car had was 2-tone paint for $10.00 But he had them add several Options and one of those was a new tire & tube for the spare. I always thought that was strange because I was always told that cars came with spare tire & wheel from the factory. Thanks for that little bit of information.

My dad purchased a brand new 1952 Chevrolet with a Powerglide from Southwest Chevrolet in Los Angeles in early 1952 and the car didn't come with a spare tire either. I remember that he had to pay extra to get the spare tire.

By the way, he traded in a 1949 Chevrolet on the new '52.

They did deduct the price of a tire and tube from the price of a new car. I would say 100 percent of our customers had us install a new tire on the spare wheel. Ddn't make any sense to eleminate the tire.....not much different from what todays government does.