VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 4.50-21 Goodyear tires

I did not know if you guys were aware, but 4.50-21 Goodyear All Weather Balloon tires are being reproduced. Available in black wall and 2 3/4" Whitewall. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Please feel free to move this if necessary.

Are they whitewalls double or single. To be period correct they should be double (white on each sidewall).

I will inquire, but my guess is that Kelsey is doing them right.

I inquired this AM about the whitewall for both the 475/19's and the 450/21's and both of these Goodyear reproductions are done as they came out back in the day..... with whitewall on one side.

In all respect you may want to ask the supplier to do a bit more research. The research that several of us have done indicates that the 1920s and early 30s had double whitewall tires. The single whitewall tires were late 30s to early 40s and later style. Many of the tire molds being used or copied today are from the tire remakes in the 40s.

I will get with John about this. Could it be that different brands did this different ways? Mr. Kelsey had these molds built off of the original blueprints.

Up to about the mid-1930's the technology was not available to reproduce a single white wall tire. The whitewall tire or white sidewall tire for automobiles had the entire sidewall made of white rubber. In the early days, car tire manufacture was only of white rubber, that being the natural color of rubber when initially processed. Nonetheless, in this form the tire's rubber didn't give adequate traction on the road, nor last all that long, therefore carbon black was included in the manufacture of the rubber used for the tire-treads. This resulted in better road adhesion and tires where the inner and also outer sidewalls were still white rubber, thus double whitewall tires.

Also, as I understand it, in the Model A Ford Club, when a car is judged and it has whitewall tires, the tires must be a double whitewall or points will be deducted.

Just curious. Are the Coker 19" Firestone & Goodrich tires double whitewalls? Couldn't tell when I looked them up. They say the Firestone are made from the original molds.

I think that they are single whitewalls.

Gentlemen (and ladies if they are out there looking at this!)

I have forwarded this thread to John Kelsey of Kelsey Tires. He is the exclusive distributor of the Goodyear reproduction tires. Currently, he is out for the week, but I will be speaking with him when he gets back in town. I will get you an answer to this burning question.

My 24 Olds has what is possibly the original tire as a spare. It is a Goodyear with Diamond tread (All Weather type?)which was put on only on the rear. The fronts were Goodyear also but were ribbed straight tread or with nothing more that grooves in line with the running direction. All Olds of the period were done that way. I saw a picture the other day of a new "Super Sport" V8 Olds that looked like it had white rubber all over (what looks like black tread in this picture may just be dirt on the tire)and Goodyear Diamond tread on the front as well as the rear. It was on Ebay and is under "1923 Oldsmobile" I think. The picture also has a ball player in it. Those cars were very special and may have been an exeption. I suspect Chevy would have done it also or very close. I would be interested in what type tread these new Goodyears have. My 28 has a very old Goodyear on the spare and it is a later type tread possibly from the 30s-40s

Here is the stock photo of the blackwall 21. I have not forgotten about the question asked at the beginning of this thread. I will be speaking with Mr. Kelsey when he gets back at the beginning of the week.

[img]http://www.kelseytire.com/pages/largepopup/45021_Goodyear_All_Weather_Balloon.html[/img]

Ok I see now. That is not the diamond tread I was hoping for but it should work ok on my 28 Chev. It has Wards Riversides on it now and I don't mean new repos but good old original ones. They have a few cracks in them but not to bad. As much as I drive it , new tires are in the near future.

I want to say thank you for asking the question. In doing so, I am then asking and gathering information and learning something I did not know.

You are correct that double white walls are period correct. This was the manner as stated until the 40's. Then in the 40's, the manner of one white and one black wall became the practice. This came around for multiple reasons: the ability to bond a white rubber layer to black, a reduced cost(higher yield) due to less blemished/ fouled tires in production, and of all things, to reduce inventory as the tires were now considered reversible.

Now, to further answer your questions, these tires are done as the one white and one black wall. Reasoning for this was to again make a tire that would be high yield/ reduced blemish opportunities and to make a tire that was available at a reasonable price. Mr. Kelsey has been in the tire business for many years and remembers having double whitewalls available in the '70s. The price tag was considerably higher and many people did not enjoy scrubbing 2 whitewalls, let alone 1!!! The price tag today would show a very sizable increase in price tag making the tire cost prohibitive.

Now that I have found this information out, can I please ask a question of this group? Fords ( I know, a dirty word) in the day did not come from the factory with whitewalls. The whitewall tires were dressup items that were added as the first tire replacement or as a dealer upgrade. The question I have for you is: Did Chevies have whitewalls from the factory? DO you have photos?

How can I get some of the white walls here in Oz and how much are they?

Don't know when whitewalls were first factory installed on Chevys but except for the all white early tires it was after the early 30s. ChevyGene should know.

Contact www.cokertire.com

For Firestones

For Goodyears, contact Kelsey Tire or myself.

Aussie27
There are heaps of places to get WW tyres in Aus, a couple are
Antique Tyre Supplies
Old World lamps and tyres
Look up their web sites or google
4.50 X 21 blacks walls come in a variety of brands, start at $180 odd and up to $260 odd, I think ww's are an extra $100 odd
Where abouts are you located? What body style 27 do you have?
Chris

Contact me. I can get tires to Oz!!!