Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Sometime before spring I need to put new tires on my 1951 200 Deluxe Touring sedan. I am looking at the narrow whitewall radials to keep the price reasonable. My spare is a really old 760-15 I think and the tires on it now are G-78 bias-ply. They look OK but you have to jack up the car at the frame to remove the rears.
The conversion charts are not consistent. What size modern tires should I be looking at?

For my Cavalier, which uses 8.00-15, I have 235/75 R15 Hankook H724 thin whitewalls. Those work well. The Coker Tire chart

Coker Tire Cross Reference Chart

says 8.00-15 should be 235/75 R15 and 7.60-15 should be 225/75 R15. Looks like those tires are available as both 225/75/R15 and 235/75/R15
America's Tire, Hankook H724

Part of the issue with fitment is a 8" tread is not 235. 8 converts to 203 mm. But 235's what they like to sell over there.
The other is profile/aspect ratio of the bias versus the radials. The bias were something north of 75 but under 80, but 75's about all that you can get now.
One way to overcome this is mounting the tire from underneath the drum and picking it up into the wheel well, instead of trying to cram it in width-wise. The clearance is better that way.
The radials made in the OEM bias molds are supposed to not have this issue, but I didn't find much difference and I used 215s on the Cad. It was just a design thing back then, they could care less if one had a flat on the road. Style over function.

Jim. I was out in my garage today putting on 00 gauge battery cables (big difference) and measured the G78 tires on there now. They are 8.5" wide. I found some Hancook touring tires in 225/75R15 on Ebay and they measure exactly the same as what I have on the car now. I can get the rears off by jacking from the frame and not the axle so I know they will fit. Four narrow whitewalls for $422 including shipping sounds like the best deal available at this point
Jerome suggested Hancook H724 but I think these have been replaced by H735 so I will be ordering these this week.

You are right that Hankook H724's have been discontinued, there might be some available in warehouses.

The Kinergy H735 has the option of either raised white lettering or blackwall. Hankook from what I can tell, does not have any other whitewall tires available in current production.

The following tire is available from America's Tire in a 235/75 R15 size with whitewall. Maybe there are others.

Nexen N Priz AH5, 235/75 R15 Thin Whitewall

Even six or sever years ago I had trouble getting Hankook whitewalls for my Plymouth Voyager Magic Camper. The shop told me that only one size with whitewall was available which was a size larger than my car's specifications but I wanted the larger size so bought them.

Hankook Kinergy ST H735 225/75R15 102T WW Tire (QTY 4)
These are available on Ebay right now at $422 for a set of four. Not sure they are in current production but the seller has 40 of them in stock. Simple tire has them also but $45 more.
I looked into the Nexen but I found a bunch of complaints about whitewalls going brown so I have decided on the Hancooks.

Wow that's great! The sources I found said you could only get the Kinergy in blackwall! But I see it's (secretly) available in WW too!