Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

To Owen-Dyneto I was told be someone(?) in the tire business that only two manufacturers still make tires in the US, one was Cooper and I seem to recall that the other was Firestone. Michelin has a factory here in South Carolina, so he must have been talking about US companies.

My 1955 Packard's tires are at least
40 years old (car has been in storage
most of the time since 1969). My
mechanic said that the tires are shot
and need immediate replacing. Query:
What is the proper tire size for the
1955 Packard Patrician? Can I obtain
the white wall width that was extant
in 1956. Where can I find a supplier
of these tires? Any expertise on these
questions would be greatly appreciated.
PJ

Hello PJ, and welcome to PackardInfo.

It appears your year and model car calls for 8:00 x 15 tires. Coker tireshttp://store.coker.com/ caries an extensive line of original mold tires. I personally run original mold Firestone and BFG wide whitewalls on my collector cars. There are other tire options depending on your preference.

Best of luck with your search,
Jim

G'day PJ,
Like to add my too. And as Gerd said please include your '55 in the Owner Registry together with a pic, any known history and how you acquired it.

I have a set of Diamond Back WWW on my 38 and they are great,although a mite $$. The carcass is a Yokohoma. The handling difference twixt the bias and the radial is truly amazing.

I'll ditto exactly the same post as what BH posted above.

Running 235 75R15 on my 56 Executive. They slightly rub the inner rear fender wells but only under under extreme off-camber driving conditions which only seems to occur at very low speeds. Speedo seems to be off by about 5 mph at 70 mph reading too fast by 5 mph.

I'm running the CHEAPEST 235 75-R15 modern Radial i can find usualy at PeP Boys.

NO complaints. Incidently, the front end is set with Positive Caster NOT negative caster as the factory specified.

A couple points I can add to this discussion.

As nearly as I determine, the Senior Packard bolt pattern is 5 on 5" - same as B.O.P. (Buick, Olds, Pontiac) in the 1950s and the same as full-size GM station wagons into the 1980s.

The Junior Packards/Clippers seem to use the 5 on 4.5" pattern used by post-1948 Ford, Plymouth, and AMC (others too, I'm sure).

Those running "white stripe" tires or otherwise dissatisfied with their wide white options might consider carefully sanding away the black rubber on the sidewall of a white-stripe (what I call a "narrow whitewall") or raised-white-letter tire to reveal the wider layer of white rubber underneath. This is a popular trick with budget-minded nostalgia rodders (see the popular message board the "HAMB" for details).

Some have also had success painting their own whitewalls with Krylon spray paint, but I can't speak to the durability of such a modification.

-Dave

Here's my experience for what it's worth with both types of tires on the same car, 1956 Caribbean convertible. The front end has not been totally renewed, though the upper inner bushings have been replaced and the balance of it is reasonably tight and snug. As I am a bit heavy and usually the only person in the car, the front end was aligned to factory specs with a weight approximating my own in the driver's seat, this was at one time a recommended practice for alignment of unevenly loaded cars.

The first set of tires were General 8:00x15 (a duplicate of one of the OEM tires) from Kelsey tire, bias ply of course. Handling and tracking on the road was very satisfactory but tire life was quite poor, only about 7000 miles before significant wear was observed. A complaint to Kelsey resulted in his offering me at a very significant price reduction a set of Goodyear wide white radials in 235R15. These have now been in service about 4000 miles; the car still handles and tracks very well, but it would be a stretch to say there was much improvement in handling and road manners. As you might expect, thus far there are no signs of tire wear.

PJ, I'll go along with PackardV8 on this one. Until you know exactly what you will be doing with the car, buy the cheapest 235:75 R15 radial you can find. That will allow you to move the car safely and give you some time to evaluate it. If you decide to keep it and want better tires, then I would recommend Diamondback Tire. I hope you keep the car and join this group of happy Packard owners.
In any case aboard - glad to have you.

The 235 75R15 tires on my Exec are Cornells. Somekind of cheap tire that pep boys sold about 7 years ago and Pep Boys told me they were made by either Cooper or Fisk.

They have about 18K miles on them and are worn about 75% so i'll be replaceing them sometime within the next year to 18 months. Hopefuly, sooner.

They are thin white stripe radials, mounted good and have required very little weight to balance/rebalance. About 3 Oz's weight at the max. Two of them required only 4our 1/4 oz weights and IIRC one of them required nearly no weight, just one 1/2 ounce weight on one side.

The front suspension was low mileage factory when i got it, now with 52K miles on the car. Like Owen, i replaced the upper inner Control arm bushings about 10K miles ago. Later changed only the caster setting.

The car still has some minor instability in high cross wind at high speed, but then again so does my 01 Dodge Ram.

I'd say the Exec drives as good as my very low mileage 89 Caprice or at least real close except for the high cross wind conditions. That mite be due to the Exec's high profile, the rather less than desireable power steering design or maybe new lower inner control arm bushings mite help alot. At this point i'm mostly satisfied. Still a little room for improvement tho.