When these cars were new, they came with "interesting" tires. I always brought the car to to Chapel Hill Tire Company and had them install Michelin's as soon as I took delivery of the cars (Johnson Motor Company, Durham--long gone). BUILDING: SHOWROOM: SERVICE DEPT: They stayed on for a year or two as this was my daily driver and I drove it to work and down to FL and back a few times to interview for jobs after I got my next degree from college. Ended up in Palm Beach at a private school, but left after two years to open a shop in Boca Raton, which had a population of about 10K back then, and less in the summer. Left Boca 2 years ago after I retired and moved to a very small town that was like Boca (and Chapel Hill when I started there in '64). Boca became, well, "Boca, " and I just could not do it any more after 47 years. I am guessing my new town (Hobe Sound) will become more like Boca eventually, but I won't be here, so... After that, I think I went with Michelin's again until the "refresh" in the early 1990's when I went with the Radial TA's. Also, after the car was first done, I won an AACA 2nd at the winter show. After that, it sat in the garage under a cover and I only drove it to shows. HOWEVER, I was married with a young child and traveling 200+ days a year for work, so it was not important for me to drive the car that much on a daily basis. PLUS, even though paint jobs were cheaper in those days--I think materials were $500 (red was expensive) and the whole thing ran me less than $5000 including media blasting to the raw metal--driving a car like that around town was dangerous for the paint. Things were sure different back then! Painting a C-2 car today STARTS at $25 K and goes up from there these days. I drove the red car to the paint shop totally stripped and using an orange crate for a seat. My mom followed me from Boca to Boynton Beach on I-95 and I was worried the whole way as the car had no lights, no bumpers, no interior, no nothing! Mom said, "NEVER AGAIN!" The painter, Dale Winters, delivered the car back to me on a trailer, naturally. After painting my car and a few others, he told me he quit and started painting airplanes for competitions. Said it paid about 10x more than for cars! He won a bunch of awards for that. My car, when I sold it 15 years later, the paint looked like it had just been done. He was a pretty good car painter! Sorry, hard to remember that far back on that specific item, but I definitely took all 4 of my new Buick's to have Michelin's installed. The cars rode much better on them, although with all that torque, not much good in stoplight "fun" that you remember from back then. Cheers!
Thanks for clarifying about your tires as I was a bit confused by a new '72 GS wearing thin white lines which I did not believe to be correct for a '72 A-body. Now I understand that the tires in the photo are higher quality Michelins. I bet they were a nice improvement over the original tires. Were the Michelins radials?
Absolutely! They were kind of new back in those days I think, but then I had only been driving for a few years and knew slicks, but not much about tires, sorry to say. I think my dad got some on one of his cars (big Oldsmobile's every 2 years back then) and I drove it and felt the difference. Anyway, they made me feel much safer driving all those cars back then. When I bought the C-2 5 or 6 years ago, it had repro gold-stripe bias belt (show points) tires on it. I drove it 7 miles after I first got it and realized why the speed limit back then was 55 mph. The car "jumped" all over the road at regular (35-45) in-town speeds. I guess I had forgotten how they behaved back then. Makes you appreciate those race drivers, for certain! Cheers!
