Packard Forum Index » Pre-War (1899-1942)

Was there any specific OEM manufacturer used for WWW tires for the 1941 model year or was it much like today where the tire supplier changed over the course of the year?

I am looking to replace the WWWs on my 1941 7 Passenger Sedan and I am looking at the Coker Firestone bias ply which is nice but I'm not sure how I feel about the raised lettering in the white wall, and the Coker BF Goodrich bias ply which appears to be less gaudy. If Firestone was OEM, I'll probably go with that. If there was no specific OEM supplier I'll probably go with the Goodrich.

Just as they dual-sourced functionally equivalent electrical items from Delco and Autolite to protect against supply shortages or disruptions, Packard like all (or most) car manufacturers used multiple sources for tires. Though I haven't seen mention of it consistently, company publications sometimes did (for example,1934) mention specific brands.

Check out Diamondback Tires. I've been running them for years.
dbtires.com/

I wouldn't put radial tires on a prewar car.

I second Diamond back tires, there are two lines of thought as far as radial or not. If you are going for a complete original 10 point restore then stay with biased, but really if you plan to driveyour car alot then for ride and drive ability radials are the way to go, there are so many radials from Coker and Diamond back etc etc etc to chose from its kind of confusing. I put Coker radials (biased look alikes) on my 56 Belair and it rides and drives awesome, biased tires tend to track in road groves and are not very good for cornering (tend to roll on the sides)and im not talking about 55mph up a canyon road, just cruising.

But hey this is just my opinion and im sure this will get a few replys!!!! LOL

Good luck

I drive a lot. Almost every day. I have Diamond Back Radials. Very plain looking. Very wide white wall. Incredible difference in handling driving country roads.

The difference between Diamondback and others is Diamondback uses commercially available tires from many manufactures to match the size of the originals they are replacing. They then polish off the outside letters and numbers and apply a whitewall to the tires; or, leave the outside plain for a blackwall. Not inexpensive, but worth the cost. I had Diamondbacks on two of my Packards and was most pleased with both sets.

Diamondbacks are an excellent choice and I believe are all based and constructed using well respected brands. I think the tires that BigKev chose are also worth considering. They have the profile and looks plus the dimensions of the original bias tires of the era but have modern radial construction. As I recall Diamondback also sells them but not in as many sizes as some of the other places that typically deal in collector car tires.

I went with Coker nylon bias look-alike radials on my '39 touring sedan and would definitely throw my vote in for radials over bias ply. I agree with Pat (56Chevman) that nylon bias ply tires tend to 'lead' and grab any anomaly in road surface; one spends a lot of time 'counter-steering' them, to say nothing of noise, flat spots from sitting, etc. A little more dough, but well worth it IMO. Chris.

Continuing on the tire topic, how long do you guys go between purchasing new sets? I assume that your cars don't accumulate thousands of miles a year and wear away the tread (I could be wrong), so at what age do you replace your tires?