The Riga Motor Museum have plans to make a correct set of tyres for their Russo-Balt fire-truck. It was originally fitted with Prowodnik tyres. Both Russo-Balt vehicles and Prowodnik tyres were made in Riga (now capital of Latvia, but back then part of Imperial Russia).

see:

http://www.tehnoart.eu/prowodnik-tyre.html

Prowodnik tyres were a well known brand sold in many countries including the UK (London buses used their solid red tyres), Europe, USA, Australia and elsewhere including Persia and the Far East.

Apart from "smooth" tyres, Firestone "Non-Skid" and the expensive British hand-made Dunlops there are no other brass era correct tyres available, if I'm not mistaken.

If they were available in T sizes and priced right would you consider them for your brass T?

In redwall with a hardwearing black tread maybe. Then again i do not own a brass T but i don't care.

(Message edited by kep610 on November 26, 2014)

Not sure what you mean by priced right, any idea what the price would be...?. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm sure if they were priced at a bargain you would see a fairly good market for them in our hobby world, I would run them on my T I think they would make a great conversation piece as well sense they have an odd tread pattern.

If they were priced to compete with the Vietnamese tires and lasted longer, they would sell.

I would be interested for sure!

Yes I would, especially since right now my white tires on my '12 are turning a very ugly brownish/yellow.

I wouldn't buy Russian rubber. It appears to be stone hard with little or no traction. Just watch a few of the hundreds of videos taken from dashcams over there. Even if you skip the winter scenes, some cars seem to spin out of control for no reason or can't stop. Or perhaps it's just what the Model T needs.

Tim,I bought a set of wide white walls for my old lincoln and the white turned yellow in a few weeks.Acetone will remove the yellow from a white wall as perscribed by the tire dealer.So you may try it on your problem.

Tim, have you tried this?

Mack & Steve....haven't tried either. But I'll give 'em both a shot! When it warms up that is!
Thanks for the input. Really appreciate it here on this forum.

Steve,

I've tried it. It doesn't help the yellowing of my one white tire. That's right - only one out of the set of four bought in 2008 is turning yellow - orange. The other three still look normal.

What does help - scotchbrite and soapy water.

Green scotchbrite pads and bleche wite is the way I have been doing it for years with excellent results.

Constantine
Yes I would be interested in a set of 30x3-1/2.

Ken
Your comments on "Russian rubber" may be well founded BUT Riga has not been part of Russia for almost 25 years now. The three Baltic countries are very progressive places in my experience.

I believe there is now a world shortage of rubber. Firestone made their own huge rubber plantation in Liberia a hundred years ago. They got in trouble dealing with the rebel Charles Taylor, and lost big time. It was on a tv documentary recently.

Ken's comment on Russian rubber is interesting, based on dash cam footage from Russia he is claiming that Russian rubber gives poor traction. I suspect that the only dash cam footage that he has seen is of cars not traveling in a safe and normal way...well duh! No one posts footage of a person successfully jumping from a trampoline into a pool, they only show the mistakes. Do you think that the Russian dash cam footage might be of the exception rather than the rule. No, wait, that made no sense, I do not think anyone has ever successfully jumped from a trampoline into a pool, so we can extrapolate that no Russian drivers can keep their cars on the road and that must be because Russian rubber is no good.

One of the front tyres of this British made Imperial Russian Army vehicle in 1915 seems to be a Prowodnik (which means "explorer").

Collectors would welcome tires from other makers. Competition is a good thing. I'd definitely be interested in red tires. They were sold in the brass & nickel era and haven't been available for many years.

If the quality is there and the price is right- Heck yeah! I think a set of those would look great on my 23 express delivery, aka "Hope".

Looks interesting, but which side of the road do they work on ?

I had the same issue with my white tires, I stored them while I was completing my 1911 roadster, some of you may remember I came really close to selling them and using black smoothies before I ever mounted them, mine looked like they had been soaked in tea. Only thing that made them white again was a box of SOS soap pads and the bleach white coupled with a ton of elbow grease!
I sold the car just a few months after the cleaning, stored it for the buyer for 4-5 months when I drove it onto the transport truck they had changed back to the crappy brown color again...!
I'm not sure what causes the transformation from white to brown, but I do know one thing I fixed my issue and I'll never have the color issue ever again.
My fix is ill never own another set of white tires, heck I thought the brass was going to be the issue with owning a brass era car, never give any thought to the tires being a bigger pain in the A$$! Than the brass....

The oils leaching out of the compound the the tires are made of.