MTFCA Forum

Hi All,

I am researching the history of tires for an article in a UK vintage car journal.

In Europe beaded edge/clincher tyres were dominant until the mid-twenties with straight sided tyres used for a brief period in the early 1920's but both were quickly replaced by wellbase wired tyres from around 1925.

It seems like wired straight sided tyres were adopted much earlier in the US, partly due to the need for Firestone to get around patents held by the clincher tire association, although I also read that the legal case was pretty flimsy and so they were able break this stranglehold quite easily and ended up manufacturing clincher tires too.

So my question is, when did straight-sided tyres really take off on in the US, what was generally more popular (S/S or clincher) during the 1905-1920 period, and at what point did the modern wellbase wired tire replace both of them?

Any help gratefully received!

Thanks

Tom

I may be able to get the ball (tire?) rolling off the top of my head. The straight sided tire started becoming popular around 1910. It had a somewhat slow start slightly earlier. Between 1905 and 1910 there were several, sometimes odd, sometimes convoluted, miserable to work with, variations on clamping the tire, tube, and rim together. Some of those were known as "single tube" (basically a tire and tube made as single item), some with clamps vulcanized into the tire and/or tube. These systems were generally expensive, difficult to work with (especially on the side of the road trying to fix a flat!), and replacements for all those differing designs could be few and far between. I won't try to name any of those myself.
About 1910, tires mostly settled down to clinchers and straight sided. Larger cars mostly used straight sided tires after 1910. Smaller cars stayed mostly with clinchers at least until about 1920, as more and more of the smaller and mid-size cars switched to straight sided as well. Several of the most popular smaller cars used clinchers well past 1920, including Ford (an option clear to 1927), Chevrolet, and Overland's smaller models.
About 1924, the new type "low pressure" straight sided tires began taking over as automotive tires. Known as "balloon" tires at the time, it took only a few years for them to totally take over the marketplace.

Good luck with your project!

Tom, I am not sure modern well based tyres actually took over from straight sided tyres. The tyres did not change. Rather the rim technology changed. For example , Ford used straight sided tyres on split rims in 1926. When the wire wheels were developed with their well based, the same tyres were fitted.
Allan from down under.

Straight-sided tires were marketed pretty early in the US. They were standard equipment on many brands in the pre-1910 period. Here is a Goodyear ad from 1905:

Thanks all for your contributions.