Ford Tires A bit late but back on track. Ford had a long association with Firestone up until the Exploder issue, Correct tires for any Ford over the years since Henry and Firestone went camping with Firestone (documented) were always Firestone. Each car manufacture had a primary relationship with a specific Tire manufacture but would offer any make of tire based on supply chain. Ford + Firestone. Ford had a major investment in Firestone. GM+ Uniroyal. GM was a major investor in US Royal the predecessor to Uniroyal. Chrysler + Goodyear. The Melon Family of PA were major stakeholders in both companies. Possibly to prevent any suggestions of collusion and to comply with anti trust laws each manufacture bought tires from all the manufactures. When it come to what name showed up on raised white letter tires on a particular make you can bet it was usually the company they has the strongest relatiohship with. Other usless information regarding tires. Whatever tires were on the car that won the pole position at the Indy 500,those were the make of tires that were on the pace car. This was the way until 1972 when Goodyear solely supplied all the tires for the pace cars.
The "Vagabonds" - these camping trips included not only Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, but also Thomas Edison and naturalist William Burroughs. They traveled will a full entourage, including chauffeurs and a chef, and were often joined by other luminaries such as President Herbert Hoover. Along those lines, William (Billy) Ford Jr, Henry's Great Grandson, is married to Harvey Firestone's Great Granddaughter, which made the whole Explorer thing a bit more sticky... :Smarty:
That entire episode with those Explorers and tires was shaky. I'm surprised that Bridgestone (parent company to Firestone) agreed to the "deal" behind the scenes. They took the hit, lost a whole big chunk of their business, and most important to Japanese, their "face" Years back they probably would have hanged themselves (no kidding, that was still going on n Japan when we first went there in the 80's.) We had an Explorer that had a tire come off the rim (Firestone Wilderness AT) that actually belonged to Ford and was serviced at the plant garage. They had just given it a clean bill of health after checking the codes on the tires and resetting the pressures less than a week before. They couldn't find any damage to the tire or the wheel and the Dearborn torpedo they sent out to keep this under wraps, tried to blame the whole thing on me. Then 2 more happened at the same plant. They wanted to put that same tire back on the car on the same rim. The other three tires had 24 psi in them when it went down (at 80 MPH in the rush hour on I-275) and had been set at 26 per the sticker the week before by the company mechanic. The torpedo kept insisting they wer set at 32 the week before (how would he know?) until I called over the mechnic and he backed up my story. We also had a few rollovers on Bronco II vehicles a few years earlier (same basic vehicle). So I think there was more to it than just faulty tires and bad owner maintenance. Ford desourced Firestone after that (to help with the coverup), doubt Firestone wanted much to do with them anymore anyway. My daughter's new Escape had a left rear tire come off the rim the first week she had it. Fortunately no accident. It was a Continental. Coincidence? I think not. I just replaced the Continental tires on our other Escape at 50k. It has Firestones on it now. Difference is these were made to Firestone specs, not Ford purchasing specs. Hint, hint.
Had a '69 Torino GT Fastback and it had F70's on it. I believe Mustangs only had E70's but that was.................years ago. I just know what the Torino had on it and they were the biggest you could get. First year of the fiberglass belted tires(at least from FOMOCO). Worked at a place that sold Goodyear and Atlas. Best tire then (for racing) was the Atlas Buycron (sp). Did not make '70 series. Any of you old dogs remember that tire?????
:laugh: :laugh: Think that tire was made of Butyl rubber (or something like that.) Maybe one of the real old farts could verify that? :laugh: :laugh: The old school way of racing was to let the tires spin and keep the RPM's up. Took a lot of "shoe work". Wasn't uncommon to see dragsters smoke the tires halfway through the 1/4, sometimes more. The old Casler slicks were great for this. I think the old "cheater slicks" were made from that rubber compound.
Atlas Bucryon (?) DH Only a year or two older than you, but I'll bite. Think you're right about the butyl rubber thing. Not sure because we always ran Mohawk recaps which were as good, supposedly. Also much cheaper. We could only buy the Atlas tires from Sohio (Standard Oil of Ohio) and they were fairly expensive. Caslers or M&H's were for guys with money, or actual horsepower. Didn't have much of either. The Mustangs did have an F-70 x14 option, and it would have been Goodyears. My '67 GT had something called a competition handling package, one of 200 ever built. It came with 15"x7"s and Firestone "Sportscar 200's". I believe it was equivalent to a "G". Also had Konis and Lincoln 4 piston brakes. Wish I had it back now. ou: Pegleg
