Re: Tires for 1955 400

Posted by Dave Brownell On 2014/6/10 7:10:35

My experience in getting decent whitewalls for my similar 56 hardtop has not been easy or particularly happy. Checking with club members and some personal experience shows that even the premium Diamondback tires, beautifully re-crafted from modern, name-brand tires for the more correct period sidewalls, has had some warranty issues. My personal experience with Coker also had some quality issues go unresolved and I won't be going back.

You get what you pay for has some truth in it. You might want to settle for Runway whitewalls, by Giti Tire, a Chinese manufacturer who claims to be one of the ten largest tire companies in the world. While I'd like to stick with a tire company closer to the USA, whitewalls make that hard to do these days at reasonable prices. Companies like D and C charge a premium price that you may not like. The Chinese and Korean (I have been satisfied with Kumhos on several other whitewall cars, but they don't make one for our Packards that I could find) seem to have the whitewall market increasingly to themselves.

When I got one out of four of the current Runways that was out of round, they replaced it with modest hassle. The other issue that I have experienced with these Chinese tires is yellowing of the whitewall. Lots of effort is needed to keep them white. The world would be your oyster if only you did not want properly sized whitewalls.

If money wasn't an issue, I'd give Diamondback another look. Supposedly, radials are significant improvements with T-L Packards, and I'd not consider bias ply tires in any car that wouldn't be judged.