Wire wheels and Narrow Radial Tires

Posted by Fred Puhn On 2009/11/23 18:37:33

My 1950 Packard 2301 Touring Sedan came to me with a set of Packard wire wheels installed. They look really nice, even though they were not available on that 1950 car. I serviced the brakes, etc. and discovered that the crook that sold me the car installed wheels that would not fit. The center hole in the wheel is perhaps 1/4" smaller than required to clear the OD of the front hub. To "fix" the problem he installed spacers under the wheels and screwed in the lug bolts a few turns, torqued the hell out of them so they would not fall off right away, and sold me the car. As an engineer with wheel manufacturing experience I can tell you this won't work for long, even if I find some longer lug bolts. Thick spacers cause bending stress on the lug bolts and eventually they break.

I plan to toss the wheels and the tiny brand new P195/75R-15 whitewall radials and replace both with proper new items. Does anyone out there have experience with the reproduction Packard wire wheels being sold by Kanter, Coker, and others? Do they fit the 2300 series Packard OK?

Also I found some new 700R-15 wide whitewall tires that have the look of the original tires (narrow tread, tall profile, but radials). Does anyone have any comments about these tires? They are manufactured by Sumitomo and sold by The Whitewall Candy Store in Orange, CA. I like these tires because they look authentic, rather than the fat radials normally seen on Packards. The cost is $216, about the same as the fat radials.