VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1929-1932 radial vs bias

I'm sure many of you have tried both radial and bias ply tires-I'd be interested to hear feedback on both with stock suspension-it's my understanding you need a little more positive caster with radials-just curious

On my 67 Corvette the difference is like night and day. Radials provide a smoother more stable ride and much better handling. Original equipment was Biass-ply.
From Wikipedia: The first radial tire designs were patented in 1915 by Arthur W. Savage, a successful tire manufacturer and inventor in San Diego, CA. [1] Savage's patents expired in 1949. The design was further developed and widely commercialized by Michelin in 1946, [1]. Because of its advantages, it has now become the standard design for essentially all automotive tires.

Al W.

When I put radials on my 51 it was like adding power steering.

When I put radials on my 1950 it really needed power steering. Steering effort for parking, etc. was much higher.

I agree on the parking part or when turning the wheels stopped. However when driving down the road it is easier to handle and does not seem to want to follow every crack in the road as it did with with bias ply. Also rides a little smoother.

Thanks to everyone for the opinions on radial tires. However, I think Lexey is asking, and I am, too, about radials for our 1930 wheels, on our 1930 cars.

I'm not sure you can even get them for the stock wheels.

Any help here? Who sells them? Do they look funny or fat, way off the original tire appearance? Whitewalls? Too skinny to make the handling changes we all like on the later models?

Gday I have just fitted 5.00 19 radial tyres on a 1931 coupe and they look fine, the coupe is not registered yet so I have only driven it a short distance in our local estate but it seems to drive ok. The tyres are called excelsior stahl sport radial and they are on the coker web site and they are available in 5.00 and 5.50. They are also listed up to 23 inch. They are a lot more expensive and I am hoping they are worth it. Michael.

Thank you and yes I was asking about radials on 30's cars-my fault for not being more specific-I know they are available from Coker and others but quite expensive and would like feedback before spending this amount of money(about 3 times as much as bias)-years ago I installed them on various muscle cars with horrible results until I tuned suspension to correct problems

Hi,
would prefer the radials all the time. As posted above, Michelin in France (old europe) did grab it and the pre- and post war Citroen 11CV was the first car having them as a standart, and they were very good. All gangsters did prefer this Citroen because no police car could follow, until today this car is known as "gangster car" in europe.
For my 1940 chevy I bought the coker radials and it is, as written, like day and night. The steel radials give me the feeling to drive a safe car instead of a small ship in bad storm in middle of the ocean.
Will really recommend to change to radials.
Did that before (long ago) with my VW beetle and as well 1961 VW split window bus and had the same result. Much better driving!

Regards
Stefangermany

I was looking at the Coker web site but only seen the Stahl Radials in Black wall. Dose anyone make 18 inch radials in a whitewall?