Ep. 33 White Stripes: The History of the Whitewall Tire
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- A classic car connaisseur tells the history of the deluxe tire, the whitewall! When and where did it originate? And why don't cars have no whitewall tires anymore?
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I LOVE whitewall tires, but another thing that I think is lost is how the wheel covers used to be color coded to match your paint job, so you could get a powder blue convertible and have matching powder blue accented hubcaps and I think it really completed the look
I love the color stripe!
It was the steel rim that was colour-coded to match the car which left a thin outer band exposed when the wheel trim was fitted.
@@timobrien9123 yeah, sorry that's what I meant
Yup, I miss color coded wheels and poverty caps. Look best w black walls though IMO
I always hated that on the Mercedes from the 1970s especially with the. Body coloured wheel trim centre. Seems overkill.
In the 1980s, most tires were still whitewalls but the mechanic would ask if you wanted the whitewall or black side mounted towards the outside.
That must be only in America.
Yes, I am old enough that the first tires I bought for my first car were like that. That would have been in the early 90's. I was a poor student so I am sure I got the cheapest tires I could. So clearly that setup was on all tires and not just the expensive ones.
Yep. Remember that exactly. Bought a set of Michelin in the 1980s and had the thin white stripe mounted towards the inside because the stripe just wasn’t cool anymore. Now you can’t hardly find them unless you buy from Coker’s retro selections.
That was still going on in the 90's and even a little into the 2000's
It happens to this day in America with the RWL (raised white letter) and OWL (outlined white letter) still found on some sportier trims of new pickups and off-road SUVs, though the trend seems to be waning.
That L.A Noire anecdote was genuinely one of the coolest things I'd ever heard. Some gamer showing his grandpa a video game based on his life? Not his specific life, obviously, but what he used to do? That's cool as all hell. A great way for video games to bring people together, no matter the age-gap. And I love the fact he was still sharp enough to say "Yeah, this is pretty right...but we didn't have no fancy whitewall tires".
I think the modern day whitewall equivalent is the super low profile tire, right down to the association with pimp-mobiles. I prefer the whitewalls.
I do too!
Oh, my WORD...... *YES!*
The low, and lower....and l-o-w-e-r-r-r profile tires have become ubiquitous. You seem to get them as 'standard' now on nicer (and often quite basic) cars.
Low profile tires---along with their BIG wheels have *definitely* become expected, if you want your car to be thought of as stylish.
And, unlike the dressiness and lovely contrast of whitewalls (or coloured-walls), low profile tires have the *huge disadvantage* of letting you feel every *bump, crack,* and *grain of sand* on the road :-(
They're just _nasty._
@@be5952 low profiles are useless outside of sports cars tbh
I miss being able to buy affordable, decent tires for 15" wheels. They even discontinued the old standby, the Goodyear Wrangler Radial. Would that car companies would come to their senses and stop with the unnecessarily large wheels on simple cars.
I ran white walls on my '70s Impalas until I couldn't buy them off the rack. I went from a '72 to an '08 and the ride even on the standard 16" was terrible and traded it in on a '99 Tahoe that had been upgraded mechanically to a Z71. The taller tires made for a soft, comfortable ride. I traded that in last year for an '18 Silverado Z71 and worried the ride would be compromised by the 18" wheels, but the off road suspension makes for a ride as nice as my old Impalas with better handling. They had a Centennial Edition in '18, which was a Z71 that came with 22" wheels. I can't imagine that rides as nice and doubt it's very good off road or in snow. The body is reminiscent of the '70s trucks and I think it would look nice with a 2" white wall.
Those low profile tires improve fuel economy, but, with the way the roads are everywhere, one minor pothole could be the end of the tire and even the wheel. Most people I think are buying SUVs today for the ride. They're not carving up the back roads at 120 mph. They're just going to work or getting the groceries and don't want to be jolted on every gap, joint, and pothole. I think as sidewalls get tall again, white walls may make a comeback.
There are also "porta-walls". An aftermarket whitewall "insert" that is installed over the regular sidewall, and usually held in place by the bead of the tire and rim.
My granddad told me a story once about one of my neighbors in the late 50's(I inherited my grandparents house so still live in the same neighbor hood) who had them, and was trying to look like a big shot to try, and "keep up with the Joneses" so to speak, and they where always drooping down, and never looked right. 😂
Yeah, they look like crap after a while, though I guess it would depend on the design, material and type of tire they're used on. If the tire is the wrong type, they'll never sit right.
Flapper whitewalls have been around since the 60s or even before
Definitely, but I had to mention it, since they weren't in the video.
@@valengreymoon5623 I had porta-walls on a VW Beetle. They were ghastly things, always flapping at any half-decent speed (even in a VW) and leading to wheel imbalance. Mine eventually self-destructed.
BTW, Ed, you do look good in that skirt (advert clip). lol
When I first got stripes on my new set of tires I was thrilled because the stripes were blue!
I was then told "No! That is just a coating that is blue to protect the white wall from getting scuffed during transportation and installation." Oh.
I've seen instances where people didn't wipe off the blue stuff, it can actually look good
Several Dodge models in the 60s actually came with blue-line tires which weren’t whitewalls with a blue coating, but actually a blue line. I think Coker Tires still sells them. Corvettes also had gold-line tires for a while.
That reminds me of those people who leave on that yellow front spoiler piece on Dodge Chargers and Challengers
@@Thinginator Goodyear bluestreaks
that blue would get wrecked the next time it rained though
Keep in mind ALL tires are made by laying strips of rubber over each other then vulcanized.
Very early white walls were made to cut cost because the black rubber was more expensive and would be a waste to use it on the sidewalls. The shift to all black was an indicator of a better tire as they had a two layer construction. Early whites even had red rubber inside. The red was used in the earliest days and then abandoned due to it having trouble with UV light. The original white/red tires would only last 200 ~500 miles before the casings would fall apart. It wasn't uncommon early on to build a white tire and fit pucks of black rubber around the outside then vulcanize for tread.
White walls made the wheels look bigger even when the tires and wheels were small. The cars were huge and needed something to proportion the appearance properly. This was important in the 50's. As the wheels got bigger the white wall shrank. As cars got better proportioned the white wall fell out of favor except on luxury cars as the small wheels that they had fitted for a comfortable ride could still use a narrow stripe.
White lettering became a thing to emulate drag racers and their painted on branding of their tires.
Summed it up nice. Its all about the golden rule and the proportions of wheel/tire, and wheel/car. Theres also the inverse of the ratio which is why the dog dish looks good, with a smaller "wheel" (the dog dish) and bigger "tire" which is the actual tire plus rim. When you take those radiuses (yes, Im not speaking Latin lol) you get ratios of numbers on the Fibonacci series.
I once Photoshopped a 2019 Dodge Challenger and added some 1958 Plymouth features onto it: the chrome side trim, fins and of course the whitewalls. I thought it looked pretty cool.
Then I decided to do the same thing with my current Ford Focus MK3 station wagon and a '59 Fairlane. I can honestly say the whitewalls make such an ordinary car look special, not in a bad way.
Check out a new beetle done up "old School" style like that.
Or a Smyth conversion beetle Ute.
They look all rounded like an old 50s pickup, ripe for a set of whitewalls.
Y E S ! !
I sooooooo agree .
Who thought and thinks a black wall tire does......any......car any good aesthetically ?
@@compassioncampaigner728 Double YES! (I keep agreeing with everyone's *_pro-whitewall_* comments---lol.)
In particular, *older British and many European cars seem so lost with just blackwalls,* due to their usually having less chrome and other bling compared to similar year American cars.
@@be5952
At some point, I feel reasonably confident that tire makers will sense a market for WW tires and snap into offering a product that can help them....B L Y - Beat Last Year's numbers.
5 to 10 yrs from now?
WW tires are an automotive ....fashion. Fashion DEMANDS change....any change. Look at bell bottoms and even, in a small way, white go go boots..........we are changing back to them.
Try adding raised white lettered tires to the Challenger and see what they do for the styling.
A small correction: Vulcanization has little to nothing to do with carbon black... Its pretty much heating rubber with sulphur and was invented before pneumatic tires... So in the context of car tires it was not "a new process". Its an important process in creating solid rubber and all tires including white ones were vulcanized from the beginning. And it leaves the rubber white... Black rubber is pretty much created by adding carbon to vulcanized rubber to increase durability.
Ed, you can go off topic whenever you want as it just makes the video more fun to watch. When I was real young people could buy "fake" whitewalls, I think they would stretch around the rim and the outer dimeter would be glued to the blackwall tire. Funny thing people can still buy them today. Thanks for your time and work
Tangents excercise the mind
Fun fact there is a part of the automotive market where whitewall tyres are still king and even requiered by law!
In the Netherlands and most other European countries bicycles are equiped with tires who have a reflecting white stripe for safety reasons on the them.
Maybe just hybrid bike tires used in Netherlands otherwise Maxxis offers Ardent models with the dun side wall. Looks cool.
The Hankook tire company is one of the last reputable tire companies that offer thin whitewalls at an affordable price.
I believe the specific model is the Hankook Optimo tire, offered in both all black or white stripe.
Automotive designers/stylists will tell you- whitewalls increase the perceived visual diameter of the wheel-tire combination. A visually 'large' wheel fills the wheel well space in a more pleasing way, a difficult thing to do before low profile sidewall tires allowed for large diameter rims. True story!
Yes, white walls are a lost art
the morgan aero actually looks pretty nice with whitewalls
probably because it's already kind of a throwback to vintage styling,.
in fact really any car with retro styling actually does look better with whitewalls because it helps complete the vintage theme
even a PT cruiser looks far more presentable with a set whitewalls
Chrysler PT Cruiser with white walls and simulated woodgrain siding is just *Chef's kiss* Perfect.
I have a neighbor who has a pink and white two tone 57 Chevy convertible complete with continental spare. It just wouldn't look right without the huge white sidewalls.
Once having had whitewalls on a '97 Buick LeSabre, one thing I discovered quickly is that whitewalls and disc brakes don't go well together. That car had disc brakes in the front, and drum brakes in the back, and the front whitewalls were always dirty. I could get them all clean and shiny, but as soon as a drove through a puddle, all that brake grime would instantly splatter all over the the whitewalls again. The whitewalls in the rear stayed cleaner much longer.
They are the finishing touch of style . My 1965 Pontiac Parisienne Custom-Sport 2+2 hardtop coupe is blue teal with , ivory and black interior . She will only wear white-walls . Ultimate cruiser .
There was a period in the mid 1960's to early 1970's of whitewall tires in dual stripes, tri stripes, blocks, and other patterns. My father bought a new Mercury every year back then, and the tires varied from year to year in the whitewall design.
dude; my 66 mercury is almost ready to drive; it's been a long time coming.
If I get it on the road in the next few months and the tires I put on it when I bought it are too old, what do you think I should put on it ?
black tires? Whitewalls? tires with a stripe? Two stripes? Just from your experience. . . it's a 66 montclair.
I'll be posting more pictures soon on my facebook page. Any thoughts or suggestions will be much appreciated.
@@safetymikeengland Sorry for the late reply, I didn't see your comment until now.
Blackwall tires back then were considered the poverty spec tires, and were on the lowest spec cars used by priests and civic fleets. I checked out the 1966 Mercury car brochure, and the cars featured there had a one band, one inch whitewall. The brochure can be found at old car brochures site, and is a great source for seeing how your car was back then. The other whitewall styles are probably non existent today. Yes, we also had a 1966 Mercury Montclair Breezeway in turquoise. From old photographs, it had the dual stripe whitewall.
@@safetymikeengland You're very limited if you want to keep the car the stock size which I would suggest. It was equipped with 8.15-15 tires, and today's equivalent is 215/75R15 or 225/75R15. A common tire size for trailers today. The only tire I could find in a whitewall was the Hankook Optimo H724. There may be others in this size with the whitewall, but not many. If you aren't aware, Howard at 'Old Car Alley' in Michigan restored a 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 convertible, which may help you out with your Mercury. He's a perfectionist.
@@safetymikeengland Hi put the old tire whites on 1st. More cost if you can afford them They are well worth the improvement in aparence of your nice car.
As a motorcyclist, I gotta say coloured stripes and white letters look fantastic.
Glad to keep the sporty tradition going!
With the trend since the 90s of making the wheels larger and larger and the sidewalls narrower and narrower, there's really not a whole lot of "wall" left to make white.
I bought my brand new 2003 Ford Crown Victoria and indeed I opted for the Michelin symmetry white wall tires. Each time I needed new tires I always got the same ones until they were discontinued. I was much later made aware that Coker makes them!
Same here. For my last set, after some searching, I found that Continental was still making that style tire. Not sure if they still do but was happy to see that Coker does because it will be time for another set soon!
Back in the seventies I remember seeing some imitation pimp mobiles with large white plastic rings on the tires, instead of an actually white wall. They were gawdy.
G'Day Ed, I'm an Aussie who owns a 1960 Ford Thunderbird. The car is black with a black and white interior, when I bought it there were 5 white walls on it, including the spare. I couldn't imagine it without the white walls, the car stands out as it is in Australia but I get so many comments that "The tyres are amazing". or "Those tyres look fantastic".
I think part of the appeal of whitewall tires is the way it fills the wheel wells, modern cars all have larger wheels and the same status affect is had from plus size wheels, cars had 14 or 15 inches then and had room to show off the tire ,this channel is great
Echoing the redline/blueline tyres of the 60s, the fitting of customising coloured plastic rim protectors in the tyre bead have become popular recently.
I realize cosmetics are subjective, but I have seen these and they are horrible.
I might paint in Michelin on my car but the tape jobs can look bad ,I just want white letters and they are hard to order in modern size
On my tire,,fill in the letters,,oops
YES
i’ve never thought that someone’s gonna cover one of my favourite car features of the past in a separate video
since i’m one of the firsts, Your movies are pure joy and please keep on with em
I put white wall tires w/ moon hub caps on my Geo Metro "white top" Convertible. I get a lot of people saying I have a nice, or cute, or classic looking car. I'm really thinking now about painting the rims blue to match the body, seeing how cool that looked.
I want to do that to my Scion iq, but it has tiny weird tires that don't come with white walls. I was thinking about painting the tires!
I love how you delve into these topics that interest me but I never think about, and you end up answering basically all the questions I didn't know I had.
I wonder if I can get a set of nice classic whitewalls for my all-electric Chevy Bolt EV. That would make a jaw-dropping contrast and make me love my Bolt even more. 😊
Call Rusty at Diamond Back Classic Radials, they can make a set for your Bolt
@@richardsmith1131 Thanks! I will explore this option, by all means! 🙂
I've always liked White walls on cars from the 50's, as it just fits them so well, and at car shows they really stick out like a sore thumb when someone does not have them on their 50's car, but modern cars not so much, but I will admit as shit as the Chrystler 300 is(mostly mechanical), the white walls do help it's looks somewhat, and I would not mind seeing a retro styled Woody station wagon make a come back in the market that has at least a thin white wall strip on the factory tires.
I like either wide white walls or all-black tires. Never cared for the little stripes or raised white letters. William Devaughn's 1974 hit always comes into my head when this subject comes up:
"Though you may not drive, a great big Cadillac
gansta-whitewalls, TV antenna in the back
you may not have a car at all
but remember, brothers and sisters, you can still stand tall."
I think it depends on the particular 50's car, really. Most likely I'd leave em off any hotroddey one and like em on, say, a big convertible or something.
@Carl Gunderson Takes upkeep, wood. Bout you can vinyl wrap like they used to use contact paper if you so choose, now. :)
@Carl Gunderson Oh, I meant you're unlikely to find woodie car body panels but you can once again put faux woodgrain on your car thanks to people that make and print wraps. :)
One 1950's car that looks better with blackwalls/dog dish hubcaps, in base trim, no two tone treatment, with less chrome is the 1956-61 Corvette. They look so garish with all the brightwork, two tone, chrome hubcaps with whitewalls. Paint the whole car black or silver, with blackwall tires, base hubcaps, less chrome, it looks like a totally different car, a lot more sinister, and I'm just talking about base factory stock appearance car, not a custom. Harley Earl really didn't know where to stop with the gingerbread chrome, on a sports car it looks better with less clutter.
Àhh, the once popular white wall tire!! This is a fun topic & you did it justice!!! 👍👍
The 1960's being my favorite car era, I can't imagine the cars without whitewalls, and almost all of them had them, even many versions of the sporty cars, Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes. Look at photos of those cars and imagine them without whitewalls; they just wouldn't have been the same. The whitewall added just the right touch. For me, white letter tires do much the same thing.
Great automotive subject ! I'm 50/50 on this, whitewall where and are great, all black looks great, raised white letters, again are great. Now try your hand at the evolution of the wheel rims. We now have 22" rims with a ribbon of rubber tire ! It has become a ridiculous trend. I think we might be going back to 36" wooden wheels !
Thanks Ed for your great video.JDS
Ed talks about whitewalls in a game set in 1940s . Then apologises by saying "I went somewhat off topic here"
Then we see a game where you must navigate a boat through a river full of obstacles (an ad).
Sometimes, not watching a video on a browser with an ad-blocker pays off.
Loved it.
Pretty Good Video ! in an un-related matter - - before crowbars were invented, crows had to drink outside ...
It really shows how much whitewalls can bring value to a car when you look at 50's cars with and without them. They genuinely look cheaper, no matter how much chrome there is on the body. Holding onto that tradition with white stripes on tires all the way up to the 80's worked fine on those conservatively designed luxury cars.
I agree and also a vinyl top some people don't like vinyl tops but I do it a car look more luxurious especially on a Cadillac or Lincoln any full size car that was top of the line in their brand
Man I love your work and all this series!
So much to learn, thanks!
I'm glad to discover this channel some months ago!
*I've been OBSESSED with Ghostbusters ever since I was little, and I remember being amazed by the Ecto 1's whitewall tires, they looked so cool and fit the car's white color lot.*
I owned a new '78 Olds Cutlass with Firestone 721 whitewall tires. Had an issue with belts shifting in two of the tires which was covered under warranty. When I picked up the car it did not look cool with whitewalls. They installed tires on the rear with the wrong width of whitewall. They took care of the problem right away but you would think someone would have noticed before the customer showed up.
The aesthetic of white walls is still in style in a way with large alloy wheels and extremely low profile tires.
I'm completely in the opposite camp (cheapo stamped hubs, high-profile tyres) but if my car (an antique Golf Plus) was white, I'd seriously consider whitewalls. If only they could make it in my colour...
I’m rebuilding a 50’s car. It was actually kind of hard finding whitewalls at a decent price, sure you can get Coker tires but they’re very expensive!
Growing up in the 60's whitewalls were the standard and the cars looked great. It was sad to see them fade away and I think many of the look alike cars today would look better with whitewalls. It would be nice to see them come back in style at least as an option.
I sure do miss the old whitewalls and the fender skirts, they gave cars character.
I turn 40 this month. I can't really remember any time in my life when white-wall tires were considered particularly stylish, or culturally relevant, aside from one of the lines in Billy Joel's nostalgia-loving song "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" (which was released a couple of years before I was born, but was still on the radio a lot when I was a kid and still is on the radio from time to time now).
You're a few months older than me. The only thing I remember is the thin white stripe. I distinctly remember it on my grandparents station wagon in the late 80s. Also my great aunt and uncles old boats from the 70s they drove. This style at 7:22
Maybe you’re not a car guy, because white wall tires were standard on just about every Cadillac up until the early 2000’s. Eldorado, Seville, Deville’s all came with whitewalls.
Thanks for making a video on this topic
Porsche 356 is a pure beauty! Last 1964 Porsche 356 roadster seen with whitewall tires sold for $104,500! 🥰
1980-90s a lot of tires were down to really thin whitewall stripes "pinner whites" that nobody thought looked good enough to EVER bother cleaning, they all looked bad so perception changed and mostly the tire places were mounting them White Side In.
I used to own a Harley-Davidson with whitewalls. They looked fantastic, but took a LOT of effort to keep clean. And I think that’s where the “rich” image comes from. Having whitewalls means that you can pay someone else to clean your tyres.
I remember the scrubbing needed to keep whitewalls clean. I would also add the lower profile of tires since the 1970's meant less room or need for the whitewall stripe. Blackwall tires also made the tires and cars look more 'European'.
By the way Ed, with your deep knowledge and sense of the US/North American automobile culture, are you sure you are not actually an American ? Did you live in the USA or Canada for a period of time in your life ?
He's from the Netherlands IIRC
While the Dutch aren’t designed in the most car centric way, they have a very strong car culture. Especially since driving a car is a privilege there, it’s very valued to have a car and much more appreciated.
Just part of washing your car before a date.
He shows a keen appreciation of spending silly amounts of money on completely un necessary things. Must be American.
Back in the day I could have owned stock in Wesley's Bleach White.
My 1953 Ford Customline I bought in 2020 still has bias ply tires from 1987 on it. I have the receipt in the glovebox. Only one of them has dry rot cracks on it. In the trunk, it has a Davis Safety Sentry bias ply tires which is from the early 60s I was told by an old man who I talked to that worked in the tire business back then.
Loved the white letter tires on 60 early 70's cars....they were selling white wall tires up into the 90's, but most people turned them to the inside.
I absolutely enjoyed this episode. I wonder if those Mercedes Benz/BMW/Porsche drug year cars of Miami Florida (mid-80’s) had many white walls. They did do quite a lot of body coloured grills back then and also had an affinity for the colour white, inside and out. Thanks for the video.
I’m sure those guys loved white lines… 😆
It took me a few moments to get it. Brilliant joke. Cheers!
Oh Ed what a great idea!!!! Windshield wipers too!!! Focusing on the 1965 Pontiacs!!!
GREAT JOB!!!
Love me a '68 Camaro SS with that classic "BF Goodrich T/A Radial" in white letters. That's my idea of class. Of course, I grew up in a trailer park. Nobody, and I mean nobody, in our park had whitewall tires.
My wifes 2011 Chevy HHR has 16×7 White Wall Tires & Steel Chrome Wheels with "Baby 👀Moon" Hub Caps it gives it a Retro Look of the 1950's
station wagons
Gotta love hubcaps, especially when you got a stone stuck in one and it rattled around.
Sometimes a stone , but more often a loose wheel nut. So giving some s warning at least and not losing the wheel nut.
Don't how a stone would get in a basic dog dish hubcap that most cars had.
wow ed I'm so proud of you! I found your hidden jem of a channel a year ago when you only had 5k subs. honestly, your content hasn't even improved that much, you are just finally getting the recognition you deserve. keep grinding and you can totally get a million!
When I was 6, my dad bought a new '72 Ford LTD. With white wall tires; my job at age four on Saturdays was to use a brush and a product called Wesley's Bleach White to clean the white walls while dad washed the car. Those were skinny bias ply tires; His next car was a '77 Cadillac Coupe de Ville d'Elegance, which had white wall tires. I was not fond of this car, since it was "Bimini Beige" or pink and as such I used to hide behind the pillar when I traveled in it! I did NOT clean the tires on that car. I washed it when dad asked but his silly tires could go fuck themselves! My first car was a '77 VW Rabbit and it had nice blackwall tires and silver painted steel rims. I've never had white wall tires on any car I have owned!
Great video!
I always made sure my Harley Davidsons had whitewalls, they look so smart with a two tone paint job, but there was a time back in the day when whitewalls were unavailable
for motorcycles in the UK. All you could get were 3 inch white inserts [ for cars ] that fitted under the bead and sat on top of the black tyre.
Many hours were spent inflating and deflating the tyre ,cursing and hammering them under the bead with a rubber hammer only to find the whitewall ',cockled' and off centre,
Yes, it was a true labour of love to achieve ' the look ' back in the day.
It's funny, one of my cars is a latter day "classic" a first half-year-production 1983 Camry... it came with 165SR13 tires. That tire size is no longer around. You can get the less-tall 165/80R13, but I found that that every year a small run of 175/80R13 tires are made, which is closest to the stock size you can get, so I go with those. And guess what, they are whitewalls as well! Well, white stripe, but it's there, and I have them mounted showing. I've mostly cut back on commuting the 82 miles to work in it because the clutch is about gone, but when I do, I can confidently say that I have the only car in the BTM parking lot sporting whitewall tires. I've also run these same tires on my 85 Golf.
Oh, and I have RWL on the back tires on my Baja Beetle.
Save for what Coker has to offer, the one thing which ruins the restoration or keeping it stock of many old cars is that you can't get the right tires anymore, and that can change the overall appearance considerably.
Vulcanization originally referred to the addition of sulphur compounds to natural rubber to strengthen it. It was invented by Charles Goodyear.
He found it by accident, dropping rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove. Sulfur kept the rubber from getting soft and melting in summer, and cracking in winter.
@@5roundsrapid263 If I remember correctly, it works by cross-linking the polymer chains. It's still useful for other elastomers, like sillicones (siloxanes).
I think I read somewhere that it was a guy named "Spock", a scientist on the planet Vulcan, that invented vulcanization of rubber, using a smidge of the vast sulphur deposits that lead to the people of the planet being known as "The Stinkies".
I simply love the whitewall tyres and i would totally use it in a car...problem is,they get dirty very easily. And they are not cheap. But they are classic and will always be pretty
Bravo! You arrive to make a subject as insignificant as whitewall tires to a very interesting part of automobile history. Bravo and merci! You’re good. Very.
I have vivid memories of having to clean the whitewalls on mom’s wagon and the ROWL on my father’s truck as a punishment. That and having to weed our 80x35ft driveway.
Guess what I now refuse to do since moving on my own?
Anything your parents tell you to do?
I was waiting for you to make this episode, and now here it is! I always wanted to learn about the history of whitewall tires and always wondered why they fell out of vogue. Keep the great content coming, Ed! :)
I remember cleaning my dad's 1974 Nova Spirit of America whitewalls with steel wool. A few quick brushes with it, and the white looked brand new. When I got my 1978 Mustang II, it had BF Goodrich Radial T/As, and I would do the same thing to clean each letter. In just a few minutes, all four tires looked brand new.
I love the white wall tires. I love them on classic cars and motorcycles.
The New Beetle also looks fantastic with whitewalls
I myself don't like whitewall tires but the redline and blue line look good on 60's models.
Funny thing about that. Back in the day my step dad bought a Chevelle SS and he told me it was uncool to have the stock red stripe tires and immediately swapped them for all black tires.
@@TSL73 I remember my mom's 68 SS Chevelle had redline Uniroyal and she had Goodyear Polyglass white letter on it.
I don't like white letter tires either
As one who has ridden bicycles for many decades I remember that until the 1980s or so it was standard for bicycle tyres to have white or beige sides, they then changed to all-black, which went along with some other improvements such as being more puncture-proof, so the all-black tyres (such as "Schwalbe Marathon") were seen as an indication of better quality.
Never seen an all black bicycle tire. Most bike tires especially Maxxis, Michelin and Even Schwalbe use large colorful fonts and other graphics that take up the entire width of the tire.
@@zarakdurrani7584 Nowadays most Schwalbe tires seem to be black with engraved inscriptions and a reflective stripe painted on. The stripe lets the wheels appear as round shapes under headlights from the side and makes the bicycle more recognizable, if it is present the reflectors in spokes that are otherwise required in some countries can be left away.
I love that cute Italian intro with the latin lover cinquecento😍
I believe the rim size also had some impact on the downfall of white walls. I mean on a 17-20inch wheel, is there any space for the white to show?
Brillo pads scrub your whitewalls clean. Did that on my Chevette.
A Chevette with whitewalls would be like a stale Chips-Ahoy cookie topped with whipped cream.
PS: I added the word "stale" just in case anyone reading this actually likes Chips-Ahoy.
This is the content I have been waiting for.
I used to carry a Tipex pen with me when I was a kid and I used to paint the lettering "Supergrip" on my Raleigh Grifter. I thought I was the Bees Knees 😀
The detail about LA Noir was probably my favorite part of the video. The 300 with white walls made a mediocre car bad.
Love you ED and I don't care what anyone says about you LOL. I actually made red stripes for my 69 GS clone.
Really enjoy the videos. Not only are they informative as a was a kid in the 60s and 70s, but also they bring back memories of the cars I saw (some I owned). I had an 83 Marquis Brougham. It came with white walls, but within a couple of years I had them mounted black to make yhe car look sportier.
My first car, a 1982 Chrysler LeBaron convertible that was my dad's Valentine's Day gift to my mom about 9 months before I was born, had whitewall tires. In fact, I think several of the more "luxurious" K-cars did. The last time I saw whitewalls as an option was when I bought tires for a Ford Windstar minivan around 2006 or 2007. The BFGoodrich tires had whitewalls on one side, and the tire installer at Costco asked me if I wanted the whitewalls facing out. I elected to leave them hidden.
Oooh
BOooh
I'm all EARs
Yeay! New video!
When I was a student in the mid eighties I drove white Ascona B with White striped tires... Smoooth :)
I love the look of white letter tires. But I also love both muscle cars and traditional, offroad oriented trucks/SUVs. Few things look as good to me as raised white letters on basically any muscle car, or a lifted Hilux or CJ-7.
Dude I owned a "vintage" Cadillac(1991 Brougham D'Elegance lol) with whitewalls and factory wire wheels. Always used Westley's Bleach White which worked pretty good, considering I washed that car once a week or so(it was the road trip/daily driver in the summer cause working a/c, parked in the winter for the most part). AKA those whitewalls never got all that dirty. Never even thought about using Barkeepers Friend on those whitewalls, but I'm sure it would've worked great, especially if they were extra grungy. The real bitch was keeping those chrome plated wire wheels clean, cause they were the real deal, it wasn't like a hubcap where you could take it off and scrub it on a table.
Another lovely video....laughed out loud a couple of times. Great humour, and I learned something - especially why I fell out of love with my whitewalls on my motorcycle. But now I'm thinking about it....
Yes i have white lettering on my jeep, infact the standard MUD and SNOW tires I got (KO2s) are non directional so they already come black one side white the other, I wasn’t planning on the white but when my mechanic asked me I looked at him for a moment and said “no way, white walls out” I love it!
We also have my great aunts 1987 caddie, It actually has white walls but for what ever reason he and my uncle opted to have the white mounted inside, when I get around to refreshing that thing I’m definitely putting white walls on it!
After choosing Continental touring tires with thin whitewalls for my 2004 Buick LeSabre, I realized that whitewalls do complement some cars made long after they went out of style.
In the 1980s I had a white 1973 Buick Riviera that I put wide whitewall tires on. I thought it looked fabulous.
I have whitewalls on my 2015 Dodge Charger SRT and I love them! I get compliments all the time on them and how my car looks with them. I also have about 15 classic cars mostly all whitewalls or white letter tires on those as well.
Quickly becoming one of my favorite channels
White-walls make the Baby Moons on my Classy Chassis shine, Daddy-O!! Excellent video! Thanks 👍🏼
Brilliantly entertaining and informative. I really had no idea why some cars in the 20s had white tyres; I'd seen them but just thought it was some fleeting fashion. I love your perfect use of 'days of yore', I work with native English-speaking students who couldn't do that.
While we're on the subject of period accuracy, have you noticed how many films that are meant to be set in pre-80s France have cars with white headlights instead of yellow? Drives me mad.
Great episode! Given that Range Rovers are to a 2022 European what Cadillacs were to a 1950's America I vote for white walls on Range Rovers.
I think they were popular for the same reason large rims are popular today. Whitewalls are a visual extension of the rim, reducing the blackness and adding something that looks like more wheel design. When cars started coming with larger and larger rims, whitewalls were no longer needed to visually extend them, so they fell out of popularity on new cars but remained popular on classics. I actually have some thin stripe whitewalls on my Thunderbird and I like the look a lot, I could imagine them becoming popular again since some people don’t like the bumpier ride that thinner modern tires offer and want a return to thicker sidewalls.
Excellent video. I personally have a soft spot for 30s and 40s cars on thin whitewalls like that Ford earlier. I always enjoyed that look.
I've got wide white walls on my 1962 vw bug and they look awesome.
Some whitewall reflections. I worked at a service station in the mid to late 1970s. Whitewalls were still pretty much standard when I started but were fading in popularity. I remember we'd often ask the customer "whitewall in or out", and I remember mounting them "in" so as not to show. I don't remember seeing a lot of the colored stripes. The blue stripe in the video struck me as strange because whitewalls would come with a protective blue film that had to be scrubbed off new tires. The blue stripe looked just like a new whitewall. And yeah, the raised white letters became popular in the late 1970s, along with the classic 5-spoke Cragar chrome wheels.
I can tell you this much, the newest Z and the 240/280Z they look amazing with white walls and the five point rims