Whitewalls

Factual Questions
1

What ever happened to whitewall tires? Cars don’t interest me much (most unusual among XY’s but true), so I never noticed. But when a single friend of my wife’s asked if there was any difference between whell covers and hub caps, I started to look on my walk this morning and, although I saw three whitewalls (two were on one side of a very oldsmobile and were nearly bald–I didn’t see the other side–and one was on the front wheel of a taxi (a retread?) and the rear tire was black–again I saw only one side) in an hour and a half walk, it is clear that they have essentially disappeared.

During the 50s if you wanted your car to be cool, you paid $2 a tire extra to get whitewalls. I am sure this was a complete ripoff even then, but by the 1960s all tires were whitewalls and all your $2 got you was having them mounted white side out instead of facing in. If even I noticed this, every male in the country must have and I guess they stopped charging and made only whitewalls. Now they’re gone. Why?

Of course, in the meantime, wheel covers replaced hub caps. I didn’t see a single, not one, hub cap this morning and I was looking. I did see two cars that had nothing, just bare wheels, which raises the question of whether dirt is goiing to get in the axle and cause some damage. But what everyone else had was wheel covers, somtimes with hub nuts showing, but mostly not. So I will guess that wheel covers have replaced whitewalls as the epitome of cool.

Comments?

While I am at it, where did all the bumpers go?

2

Bumpers turned into plastic to absorb shock - chromed steel looks good, but does nothing to absorb impact.

WW’s died when baby boomers decided they didn’t like them - VW’s were cool, but NOT with WW’s.

I believe modern hubs have internal dust covers - I don’t think real hub caps have been used since pre-war models.

Now for the bonus Q: when was the last time real pinstriping was applied by the factory (as opposed to the vinyl crap currently used)?

3

Clearly, as you say, cars don’t interest you much. :smiley:

Whitewall tires (or, more properly, white sidewall tires) are still very much available, in a great variety of styles and sizes, as well as with various widths of the white stripe. It’s true, though, that they’re a lot less prevalent than they were in, say, the Sixties. I think it has more to do with style and fashion than anything else. I’ve never researched the history of white sidewalls, but I’d be willing to bet that in the early days of pneumatic rubber tires, white sidewalls weren’t available at all.

I remember having to specify “whitewalls in or out” when having tires mounted, but that was usually because the size and type of tire I was buying was only available or in stock with the whitewall. (The theory, as I recall, was that in time the white stripe would get so cruddy dirty that no one would see it shining under the car.) But I can’t remember a time when there were nothing BUT whitewalls out there. And I certainly don’t recall ever paying anyone to mount a tire one way or the other.

Incidentally, I think it was Uniroyal’s Tiger Paw that used to sport a pair of narrow RED stripes on the sidewall. And I’ve lately seen tires with fluorescent YELLOW lettering on the sidewalls. Pretty grotesque, if ya ask me…

As to your hubcap/wheel cover question, I guess I’m confused over your definition of each. In my mind, a hubcap is a smallish steel cap that covers the wheel hub and protects the outer wheel bearing from exposure to water, dirt, etc. A wheel cover is, well, a cover for a wheel, usually just smaller in diameter than the wheel rim. True, wheel covers are often called “hubcaps,” but wrongly so. Such is the lexicon. I have an idea that what you refer to as “nothing, just bare wheels” was a wheel with a hubcap in place, but without any sort of wheel cover. Such an arrangement is arguably unattractive, but not at all injurious to the vehicle.

I’m not gonna tackle your inquiry about the disappearance of bumpers.

4

Sorry, bub, but you’re mistaken on a couple of points…

Bumpers on cars NEVER “turned into plastic.” What the OP refers to as “plastic bumpers” are actually plastic-encased steel or aluminum bumpers. The plastic encasement is probably cheaper and arguably prettier than a fully-formed, chrome-plated traditional bumper, but it MOST DEFINITELY IS NOT there to “absorb impact,” unless you’re talking about the impact of a stray shopping cart in your local grocery store parking lot.

And “modern hubs” DO NOT have “internal dust covers.” (WTF is an "internal dust cover? Something to protect against “internal dust?”) My “modern” GMC pickup has hubcaps of almost exactly the same configuration, composition, etc. as did my '58 Cadillac and my '57 Chevy and my '55 Chevy and my dad’s '52 Pontiac and my ex-wife’s '95 minivan and my SO’s 2000 GMC Jimmy…

5

Well, as I said I saw exactly 3 WWs in an hour and a half walk through neighborhoods with wall-to-wall parking.

A hub cap is just as described, a smallish steel cap that covers the axle bearing and hub nuts and essentially nothing else. I saw two cars that lacked even that and no plain hub caps. Every other car had a wheel cover.

As for bumpers, I see cars with plastic thingys that protrude a bit from the car and others that are nearly flush and look like they give no protection. And you can say what you like, but when parallel parking, I like to have a bumper that sticks out a bit so I can hit bumpers with no damage and I don’t believe those plastic thingys qualifiy.

As for looks, I could care less, as long as it gets me there. In one piece.

6

Yoo-Hoo TBone2 -

I have drilled through my bumper (Acura) - never hit metal, just high-density urathane foam. The feds require a bumper that can withstand a 5 mph impact without damage to the body. Check the regs.

For pics of cars with hub caps (as opposed to wheel covers) see:
http://www.cabriolet.rgj.hn.org/body.styles/index.html

p.s. - I’m sure there is a mounting plate of some sort within the bumper, but it was not present 3" in from the front.

7

As everyone probably knows, I’m awaiting the arrival of a 1966 MGB roadster. In the 1960s the MGB had pretty chromed bumpers. In 1975 MG switched to large, black urethane bumpers. If I thought that the “rubber baby buggy bumpers” were prettier than chromed steel bumpers, I would have bought a late-1970s MGB instead of a 1966 restoration project. So IMO “plastic” bumpers are not prettier than chromed.

As to the second part of the statement, the rubber/plastic bumpers are designed to accept impact. The reason MG went to the black bumpers was because of U.S. safety regulations that required the bumpers to withstand a frontal impact at 5 mph. (The cars were also raised to put the bumpers at the federally-mandated height.)

When I put new tyres on the MGB, they will be whitewalls. And they’ll be on 60-spoke silver-painted wire wheels with two-wing knock-off hubs.

8

Really? I was always partial to the chrome octagonal knock-offs that had “MG” imprinted on them. The car even came with a nifty octagonal wrench that you placed over the knock-off and then banged on with the included brass hammer.

After all, plenty of cars had two-wing knock-offs, but those octagonal jobs were unique to Morris Garage.

You’re right about the wire wheels - gotta have 'em!

9

My original MGB had two-wing knock-offs. The octagonal ones look too “late” to me – somewhere between the traditional knock-offs to the Rostyle wheels. I thought about going with chromed wires, but painted ones are what was offered in the period.

I have an original brochure that shows an iris blue MGB roadster. Its tires have very wide whitewalls. I think by 1966 the stripes were only about an inch wide. The ones on the '64s looked like three inches. I’ve wondered if those tires are still available. (Tbone2 says stripes are available in various widths.) But I think the older, very wide stripes would look out of place on a '66.

So I’ll be looking for tires with 1" stripes. Does anyone know if I can just go to a tyre store and get tubed radials? Or will I have to find a specialty place for tubes? I’ve read that the tires should be fitted by hand, using irons, as machines may damage the spoked wheels. Is this true?

Anyway, Hari Seldon, there will be another car on the roads with white striped tires eventually. :slight_smile:

10

I just spend 10-15 googling for 14" tires - hope you enjoy the chase - and, near as I can tell, “tubed radial” is almost an oxymoron.

11

Back in my student days I ran on retreaded tyres. The tyre shop always fitted tubes, because they said that the seal couldn’t be guaranteed.

So I was running on “tubed radials”, but they were just regular tubeless tyres with a tube fitted.

You probably don’t need the tubes, unless there’s something specific about the wheel design that would cause the tubeless tyres not to seal.

12

The spokes come up into the bottom of the outside of the wheel. They’re covered by a band of rubber, but the rubber is just there to keep the tube from getting shredded. I don’t think it’s airtight. I’ve heard that the rims of the wheel are not deep enough (or something) to ensure a reliable seal with tubeless tires.

13

In addition to chrome and white walls, the auto makers of the '50s and '60s pushed a lot of other crap onto gullible consumers trying to convince them that this was the “modern look” and you just had to have it or risk being considered a complete loser. Take tail fins for example.

Over time, the American consumers got slightly smarter and saw thru the ad hype and started getting a little more interested in function over form.

Whitewalls serve no useful purpose what so ever and just end up grimey. So why bother?

Sometimes there is progress but it is very, very, slow.

14

But they do serve a purpose: They are aesthetically pleasing. No, it’s not functional; but neither are tattoos or Christmas decorations or paintings, and many people like them.

15

Whitewalls need constant cleaning in order to avoid looking worse than blackwalls. It can be easy to decide not to bother, and I suspect many people do.

Hub caps just cover the hub, and leave the rim and part of the web showing (and requiring the wheel to be painted). Wheel covers cover the entire wheel. But, since no new cars are made with true hub caps AFAIK, the terms have become synonymous.

16

My 300ZX had a steel bumper underneath the high-density foam. I have yet to see a vehicle without an actual metal “bumper” under the plastic cladding and foam. Granted, I haven’t seen them all (inluding any Acura’s) so it is possible I suppose.

17

early michelin X’s when punctured used to be fixed by putting in a tube…and it had to be a michelin tube…all others cracked due to excessive flexing of the tyre…the walls i think were cotton reinforced so gave more than steel radials?
:slight_smile:

18

There’s two words I never expected to see together.

19

i think michelin got the message as well:D

20

Speaking of the bumpers thing: I have a problem with the plastic color-coordinated bumper covers – namely, the paint comes off too easily. With chrome bumpers or black-rubber bumpers, a minor nudge in a tight parking spot would be nigh undetectable. With my last 2 cars’ painted bumpers, it’s Hello, big black streaks of missing paint. And guess what, José, we gotta repaint the whole thing, not just touch it up. Oh, and of course, with a metal bumper after a slow-speed hit you can use a dent-puller and hammer to get it back straight – with a plastic bumper, it’s replace the whole thing.