I have to agree about improved handling with radials. I raced a car professionally last year and, if you talk to racers or their mechanics, you'll hear a lot about the importance of tire management. The books will even say that a driver is just a "manager of his tires," meaning his ability to get them up to temperature, get them sliding through the turns (slip angle) and feed information about their performance back to the mechanics. While I certainly don't race on public roads in my collector cars, and consequently don't get any heat in the tires to get them sliding, I can definitely say that consumer radials are much more predictable/safe than bias ply. Not even a contest. A nice way to handle the situation is to put wide white radials on the four wheels that are on the ground, and a Coker reproduction of the original bias ply onto the spare in the trunk. Your driving will be safer, and you can show off that spare at the car shows. Everybody's fanatic about their trunks anyway, right? I bought a 62 Dodge once that still had the original factory spare in the trunk. It had/has never been used, as the mold line around the middle attests. Anybody know where you can find more OEM spares? They aren't safe to drive on, as the rubber is so hardened that they'll come apart in short order. But they are great to put on display or in the trunk. Dan Seattle
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