Re: Tire Shopping for a '54 Clipper

Posted by 55PackardGuy On 2015/3/9 0:54:27

Interesting Tire thread on PackardInfo from 2009.https://www.packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=3221&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&type=&mode=0&start=0

Apparently '54 Packard Clippers and Cooper Untouchable tires have some history together on this forum.

Note also the calm discussion about running 30-year-old bias ply tubeless tires, and even putting tubes in them if needed. I guess there were fewer objections to those practices back in '09 than there are now. But as I recall, the economy wasn't so hot then either, and maybe not as many people had money to burn on a $1000 set of radials. Ah, those were simpler times.

Quote:

Yes, JW, Packard is said to have offered the first standard tubeless tires on their new cars in 1954. But maybe the less said about that the better. I know from experience that if you speak of Packard having introduced something first, before other manufacturers, you're liable to open a whole can of worms that will come wiggling out, screaming in unison that it was NOT Packard that offered tubeless tires as standard equipment first, NOR did they offer the first practical power steering (also in '54) NOR the H pattern gear shift, NOR the first automatic spark advance, NOR the hypoid differential, NOR any of the other dozens of automotive breakthroughs that uninformed people claim that Packard introduced.

No, you will be advised, as I was, that you don't know nothin' 'bout carz, 'cause Chevy did all those things first. Or was it Cadillac, or the Deutsche Fratzmobile Companie, in 1915, with their tubucularless tyre? (Fratzmobile also introduced the first V12 engine in 1869, I believe.)

Anyway, don't breathe a word about Packard coming out with ANYTHIING first. Factory Air Conditioning? Forget it. Cadillac beat them to that with their introduction of the roll-down window in 1922.