{Chrysler 300} Tires - Whitewall website chart

Hi all,

Following up on Bob Jacinski's comment that "the white wall widths shown on the website are not necessarily correct". Thank you Bob. I agree.

The '55-'56 width of a 3" white wall I believe is erroneous and have no idea where the information that

made that chart came from. I also have had communications from Mark Obermann and John Lazenby on this

topic a few months back as well.

I had old used tires from that period, long ago discarded, and never remember the '56 white walls being as wide as 3 inches.

I think that the OEM tires provided on new cars in '56 were Goodyears back then. I was fortunate to obtain a Goodyear whitewall tire that was never out of the trunk from a '56 DeSoto. The whitewall measures 2-3/4 " wide showing as I you can see accurately measured in the pictures. The only difference between DeSoto and most Chryslers was the size being 7.60 vs 8.20. I can't believe Goodyear would have any difference in white wall widths between sizes so I believe that Chryslers would have had the same width whitewall.

Pictures taken from the 1956 Chrysler service manual also show a tire that in my opinion looks to have a whitewall width less than 3" compared to the overall tire sidewall. Clearly the tire pictured in the manual is a Goodyear by virtue of the tread and sidewall pattern like the picture of my DeSoto Goodyear.

Based upon my documentation, I believe the WW width for '55-'56 to be 2-3/4 " to be correct. When I ordered some Diamondback Classic radials many years ago, I spoke with the owner and, because they could make the WW width any size you wanted, specified that I wanted 2-3/4" 'showing' after being mounted. I stated this because probably about 1/4 " sits under the wheel rim after mounting so is not seen or showing..

The tire on my '56 Desert Rose car is a BF Goodrich with 2-3/4" WW but is a bias belt tire. The one on the '56 Mediterranean Blue is the Diamondback radial I described above.

Again, I don't know who made the chart on the website about tire whitewall widths, but my opinion is it is not the gospel for correctness.

Maybe I'm too hung up on correctness, but so be it. Just my 50 cents.

Respectfully,

John Cote

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