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I want a mini tire and wheel that will fit my 1972 Pantera. I don't want to carry the original one because of size if inflated and don't think I can inflate it (if "uninflated")with anything that I can carry in my car. Needed a pro with shop equipment to inflate it recently (FYI original tire and steel wheel). How do I find the right mini trunk-type wheel & tire to fit my car as a spare? Thanks, Fred
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It is important to know that the rolling diameter of a spare used on the rear must be very close to the other tire to avoid destroying the ZF. The front is more forgiving.

I carry two cans of tire inflate and in 10+ years of great road trips have not needed them (which reminds me to check their expiry dates...). Indeed when a group of 18 or so of us drove mountain roads agressively for eight days a few years back nobody got a flat.

Are you SURE you need it?

Mark
Fred, you have about 3.0 choices for dealing with flat tires. The OEM spare was a folded-sidewall BFG tire mounted on a 14 x 6" Ford steel passenger car wheel. It needs a gas bottle and fitting to inflate it, and 5 std Ford lug nuts- Campagnolo mag wheel nuts may not tighten up. The Ford 14"x 6" wheel will not clear big brakes on either end. The collapsed wheel/tire fits both in the front trunk and in the rear trunk, but in front you should add a tie-down for safety. The prototype Pantera had this spare there and during the crash test it came thru the windshield.... There are also 15", 16", 17" and maybe other sizes of collapsibles, used on many cars. These tires CAN be remounted on other wheels by knowlegable tire guys. Probably not by Wal-Mart techs though. I once reworked a 16" collapsible tire on a welded & redrilled Porsche aluminum wheel to fit a show Pantera.
Second choice is a mid-'80s Ford Thunderbird spare on a forged-aluminum Ford disc wheel. This tire looks like an 18" motorcycle front tire- full OD but about 4" wide. It is supposed to be inflated to 50 psi for use; in some cars it serves as an aux. air supply for accessories. The wheel is drilled for a small-car 4-bolt pattern. I TIG'ed one up and redrilled it for a Ford 5-bolt pattern. It accepts Campy lug nuts and will fit in some front trunks and all rear trunks. It easily clears the largest brakes.

Final thoughts: if you have a flat & mount any spare, there is NO place in a Pantera trunk that accepts a full-size flat tire on a Campy wheel. You can put it in an empty rear trunk and hold the half-open trunk lid down with rope or a long bungee cord, or in the passenger seat. Racing GT-4s carried their mandatory 15 x 13" spare attached to a bracket on the ZF- no trunk insert. It barely cleared the closed trunklid. And as Mark said, if the OD of any rear spare is much different than the other rear tire, it will constantly cause your ZF limited-slip diff to slip. The LSD clutches will be wasted in 50 miles.
Your 3rd choice is a cell phone to a tow truck.
option number 4

In lieu of a spare tire I keep in the front trunk:

a flat jack & wrench to operate the jack
a lug nut wrench (breaker bar, extension, socket)
a pair of vise grips for grabbing & removing nails, etc
a kit for cleaning & plugging tire punctures
a compact 12vdc compressor
a tire pressure gauge

Everything except the jack, breaker bar & compressor is stuffed in a small canvas tool bag. The compressor has its own canvas bag.

I have kept kits like this in all of my cars since the 1980s, and have used them many times over the years to repair flats on my cars and on the cars of others. When choosing a compressor you want to select one designed for high volume, not high pressure. Most compact compressors don't put out enough air to blow out a match. A good compressor can inflate an automobile tire in about 3 minutes.
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