quote:Originally posted by Anders Hellberg:quote:Originally posted by PanteraDoug:
Anders, in the profile picture of your car what is the size of the tire it has there? The profile looks pretty wide?
The picture was taken in 1975 so I do not know the size. It can be wet tire it was raining...
If you see at www.scuderiadetomaso.se/photo_7395.html it looks as the diameter is small, on the slicks.
They look like the 305-50-15 BFG like on Ron's Euro GTS. I remember many race teams using the BFG radial T/A as rain tires back then.
That's about the widest tire you can fit on a non-flared car. The Mickey Thompson is about the same width but about .750" shorter.
The BFG tread is a know entity now. In '75 that would have been the first version of the tread design. That tire and tread was notorious for hydroplaning in the wet.
The present BFG pattern didn't appear until around 1982 or so.
The wet characteristics of the Mickey Thompson are unknown to me at present. They are a light truck tire and that pattern does resemble some of the racing wet tread patterns for Formula 1 tires that I have seen.
Does anyone here have information about the M/T tire performance in the wet? So few people drive their cars in that condition now. It may be difficult to come by.
I can tell you that virtually any 50 profile tire is a disaster in any kind of snowy condition. You have to park the car.
In fact, I think that the rubber compounds on many of the high speed rated tires like the V loose grip, a lot of it, with air temps under freezing.
I will say that I had Goodyear GT + 4, 215-60-15 on my 92 SHO Taurus as original equipment and they were very good in the snow.
I got caught in 24" of snow in Albany with it and they went through with very little drama, although I wouldn't recommend making a habit out of it.
As far as the dragster look goes, remember the original tires were Goodyear Arriva with a C 60 on the front and a H 60 on the rear and were made for this car specifically.
That was the original thought on these cars as far as I can tell.
It was a similar fitment to the Cobra 427 S/C and just to mention, the front/rear weight balance is almost identical to the 427 Cobra as well.