My 1956 oldsmobile 4 door post is getting painted next week after 18 months in the body shop and I plan on putting new tires on it. I will take off the old tires and then have the body shop paint the rims and then take the rims back to the tire shop to have new tires put on. Does anyone know what tire size I need? the tire shop said probably 215/75R 15 and that would be a radial tire which is what i think i want, they said they could get(from coker)a bf goodrich tire for $228 each plus $15 freight and they would include mounting and balancing for free, this would be a 2 1/2 wide whitewall, or they can put on a blackwall that they have in stock for $340 all 4 tires and they said they would paint the whitewall side black and turn it inside so it doesnt show. I am undecided as to what to do. Does anyone know what the car would have come with from the factory or was that an option? my plan was to put as much back to original as possible which i have done with original paint cover and seats have been reupholstere with matching fabric. my car is a plain 88 4 door post, turquoise lower, alcan white top, no pwer steering or brakes, just radio added, black and white interior, so I am wondering if since it is a basic model maybe it did not come with the wide whites, does anyone know? i have seen pics of cars with just plain black tires but most dealer brochures show wide whites. even if you dont know tell me your opinion. there is a huge cost difference too, another thought is that my car has hubcaps that cover most of the rim and i notice that some of the pics i have seen of cars with black walls have had the smaller moon type caps. also i could get bias ply tires which would be like they had in 56, so what are the advantages of going with radials? thanks for your help and maybe i can post some pics, i tried before to post but wasnt successful. thanks

Don't know about your particular car, of course, but whitewalls were an extra-cost option on all models. The full wheel covers were also a separate option... so any combination was available... blackwall or whitewall tires, with either full wheel covers or the smaller "hub caps". In addition, I _believe_ there was yet another option with the hub caps, a trim ring.

I had a '63 Starfire for awhile and it had the old bias-ply tires on it, and it drove pretty wonky... if you plan to drive your car much, esp any kind of distance, like a road trip to a meet, I'd go with conventional blackwall radials. The only glitch is, the aspect ratio on the original tires, that are probably something like 7.50 or 8.00 x 15s, was 80 or 85% (I forget which, but something like that), and the P-metric tires available now are 75% at best, so they are generally shorter, which will throw the speedometer off. In order to get a p-metric tire close to as tall as the originals, it's gonna have to be a really wide one, say 255, 265, 275, something like that (I don't know how wide they go) and that may not fit the rear wheel wells without rubbing, or the fronts without rubbing on the inside while in a turn. bleah. You might look on www.tirerack.com and just see what kind of 15" tires are available.

One thing you could try is to buy a used tire and try it and see how it fits... 215 sounds pretty small to me - I'd go with at least a 225 if it will fit - actually, I'd put the biggest P-metric on there that would fit, because, as I mentioned above, even that won't match the height of the originals... but the closer you can come to that original height, the more accurate the speedo will be. I'm not sure what's involved in recalibrating the speedo on the '50s cars, assuming it can be done at all.

Good luck - hope this helps a little... all this tire business can be a bit of a problem with owning an older car - some of the '60s cars are even more of a pain because they had 14" wheels for that longer lower look, but you can't get contemporary tires for them that look right... and if you go to 15" wheels, you can't use your stock wheel covers. Buddy of mine has a '75 Ford F-250 pickup that came with 7.50x16 tires or something like that and he has the same problem... can't find a replacement tire that's tall enough... or maybe they're 16.5s, even worse. I've always thought that what I'd do if I scored another '60s car with 14s would be to spring for a set of vintage aftermarket 15" wheels like Cragers or Americans, put a set of Radial T/As on them, consider them a vintage aftermarket customization and take the hit in favor of driveability if I was gonna have the car judged.

By the way, if you do go with today's tires, I'd get a BF Goodrich Radial T/A.

Regards,

Doug

F.Y.I. there is more than coker,here is a link:
http://www.widewhitewalltires.com/index.htm
supposed to have long lasting whitewall

Thanks for the lead, I looked them up and ordered a catalog and it looks like they have what I need.

Your 56 Olds 88 probably was originally fitted with 7.10-15 blackwalls. Virturally every car in the 50's came with blackwalls and the white walls were $12 to $15 option. The "80" aspect ratio radial equivalent is P215/75R15. What you want is a radial that is as near the same diameter and load rating as the 7.10-15 as you can find.

The 7.10-15 was a "90" aspect ratio tire. It was a 28 inch diameter tire. The P215/75R15 is a 27.5 inch diameter tire. However the P215/75R15 is 8.4 inches wide verses the 7.1 inch width of the 7.10-15. Wheel width on radials is important. You want as wide a wheel as possible. Check with your tire dealer for the recommended wheel width for the P215/75R15. Your original Olds wheels are probably 5 inches wide. I'm guessing that you need a minimum of 6 inches for the radial probably 7 inches would be better. Cadillac wheels would be wider as that vintage of Caddys came with 8.20-15 tires. Caddy wheels have the same appearance as the Olds wheels. Buick wheels would be wider as most Buicks were fitted with 7.60-15 tires. But, Buicks have a different type of center section so they don't look like the other GM wheels.

Bottom line, radials handle and ride better and give better gas milage. Make the switch.