Billboard tires and sizes in Canada

[kiki231]

As a current amateur Roadracer (bike and car), I decided to make my coupe resemble somewhat the racers of yor, specifically car #26 (forgive me Tim Potts!).
The old vintage racers really appeal to me, rough edges and all! Part of that quest is sourcing and fitting Goodyear Billboards ( i have an alternate set of 17" wheels for road duty... ). I am in Canada, so I looked around and found the only authorized dealer for Goodyear Race tires --
they are Competition Tire . I was told not to bother calling a regular goodyear dealer (even the big ones) as they wouldnt have access to this info in their catalogs.

There are a few different models of "Vintage" race tires commonly used on Cobra's. The most common when you do an image search will either feature "G7" models, or, appropriately, the "Cobra" Model -- i will make the obvious statement that the latter is probably manufactured specifically for the replica crowd...
Both fit the cobra, but the G7 has the smaller sidewall printing (still big by tire standards --) while the Cobra model has the giant "overspray" printing. The retailer told me that the G7 is a stickier tire in the dry, but not as good in the wet. --- i dont think i would have either in the wet...

Both tires are beefy and will fill the wheelwell very nicely. They do not have good street manners , nor are they street legal(tons of feedback already on that).

I have a FFR sourced 3 link setup, with a standard 5 bolt hub (no pin drives here!) , FFR front suspension, and the FFR 15" Hali replicas -- these only come in one size -- 8" front and 9" back. The Billboard tiresize that is recommended for this size wheel in the G7 is 6.00-15 in the front and the 8.00-15 in the rear. The race goodyear stock number is 1724 and 1758 respectively. These tires, by my calculation, would loosely replicate 245/60 front and a 295/50 rear -- however, they are quite "balloony", so their tread section is considerably wider than their metric counterparts. A modern performance radial has a more squared off profile-- which gives the illusion of a thinner tire when viewed from the side. I have looked at a lot of 15" street tires in person, and they still dont quite get as "puffy" as these vintage style tires do.

On the Goodyear "Cobra" model, the recommended size is 26.5x8-15 front and 26.5x10-15 rear -- incidentally, the sales person said that is the only size they come in -- part numbers are 2546 and 2547 respectively. They too are comparable to the above modern sizes, but the front tends to be a tad taller looking-- like the old race cars. I got the last set of 2012's, so i paid roughly $280 each. The price for 2013 is $298 each.

The taller tires hopefully might allow me some leeway on the ride height ( terrible roads here) without a big gap around the tire.

I know this all sounds very superficial, and i am normally a "Form follows function" guy, but i have allowed myself these indulgences on this baby ...

[tcsracing1]

comp tire no longr sells them.

[Gav]

Over here in Australia many guys are fitting Avon CR6ZZ tyres to their cobras.
They have that old school look of the billboards but are DOT approved and behave well on the street.
They perform very well on the track too.

I'm in the early stages of building a coupe with pin drives and 15" FIA trigo wheels, I'll definitely be fitting a set of them.

http://www.avonmotorsport.com/historic/historic/cr6zz