Running in the red

[Rich P. Bingham]

Often there's a lot of discussion on white tires, the accompanying grey tires, the development of black tires, and questions on the timeline when they all appeared or disappeared.

Mulling on all this with a friend, it came to mind that a time or two, 50-60 years ago, I came upon the odd 20s or older relic or Hoover wagon wearing the remains of RED tires . . . yet I don't recall any discussions on these boards ever making mention of them. Thoughts ?

[TRDxB2]

My speculation
During the Great depression engineless or permanently out-of-gas automobiles drawn by mules or horses were called "Hoover Wagons" in the USA
and "Bennett Buggies" in Canada. Obviously these names were in reference to the effectiveness of the prevailing Administration's handling of the economic crisis in their respective country's.
In Accounting red figures mean a loss, so...
The significance of RED tires was likely a metafore for "running in the red" meaning building up debt. Since it was the Great Depression, I doubt if the owners of these wagons could afford red rubber tires and painted the tires red.

[Wayne Sheldon]

This subject has been discussed on this and other forums over the years. A mostly forgotten bit of automotive history is colored tires in the mid 1910s into the very early 1920s.
What is often discussed is the transition from early off-white tires into black tires, and its connection to rubber shortages caused by the war in Europe about 1915.
Tire manufacturers had been playing with the chemistry from the beginning, but sudden shortages of the raw materials (mostly sourced worldwide from South America) pushed efforts to use "fillers" in the rubber to get more tires out of less material. A form of carbon black was found to mix in very well and greatly increase the number of tires that could be produced out of a carload of basic rubber. It was then discovered that the carbon black also made the tires wear much better! So it relieved the shortages in two ways, by making more tires and making them last longer.
Meanwhile, playing with the chemistry had some other effects. Other colors were also possible. So, for a few years, basically from around 1912 to about 1922, tires of other colors were offered. These were mostly a marketing gimmick, those guys have messing with us for a long time. The brightly colored tires were gimmicky, and appealed to being flashy in an unflashy era, so they didn't really sell very well. Not many survive for us to see these days. In part because most of them were a softer blend of tire rubber, and they disintegrated fairly quickly.
Advertising for the tires is hard to find. How does one advertise a colorful product in the black and white world of publishing those days?
A long time ago, before the internet, someone in our local model T club found something about such tires, and for several months, it was a popular topic at the club meetings. Several members (including I) found original era advertising and shared it with other members at the meetings. A lot of the shred advertising was black and white print mentioning the colorful tires. A few people found and shared actual color print advertisements showing colorful tires! There weren't many magazines back then that offered color page advertising, but a few did, and those ads were expensive!
Someone really good at searching the internet might be able to find copies of some of those ads?

Over the years, I have been blessed (or cursed?) to get to know several major collectors in this hobby. One fellow (I out of respect will not name) had several original colorful tires displayed on his shop walls!
Tires were offered in either solid colors, or various sidewall and tread combinations. Black, gray, red, green, and blue were among the offered colors. Ones I have seen, his and a couple other places, include gray tread with red sidewalls, all red, red tread with green sidewalls, among others.
Really neat stuff! I really wish more people would have made an effort to preserve those things.

[JohnM]

[Rich Eagle]

Thanks John. Here's another.

Fisk.jpg (59.13 KiB) Viewed 3300 times

Rich, I recall the remains one of those on the Heise Paige-Detroit. It's sad one of us didn't get it.
There doesn't seem to be much on the internet about them.
Thanks, Wayne for the info.
Rich

[Rich P. Bingham]

Wayne, thanks for the informative post ! John, Rich, thanks for posting those ads ! It's a treat to see them. Those Fisk red-tops are really appealing. I wish now I had paid attention to the brand on the red tires I saw.

[Wayne Sheldon]

About twenty or more years ago, I think it was one of the Bakersfield swap meets I went to. There was a fellow there that had a very early front axle with wheels sitting in the back of his pickup truck. I still remember he wanted six hundred dollars for the whole thing. On the two original wheels, were two very old tires, White tread with green sidewalls if I recall correctly. They looked like they had been stored in the dark cool corner of a barn for a hundred years. I WANTED those tires! I tried several times to talk him into selling the tires separately (as IF they could have been removed easily and quickly?). No way did he want to separate them. I could not afford to pay anywhere near $600 for a front axle I had no use for, but if I recall correctly, I offered a couple hundred for the tires alone. He just kept saying that whoever might want the axle might also want the tires, so he would not sell the tires alone first.
They probably wound up in someone's trash and then a landfill.

[MichaelPawelek]

The red colored tires would have looked great after being driven on roads constructed of iron ore….

[Steve Jelf]

Yes, there were red tires. Also red inner tubes and, of course, radiator hoses.

... and red sidewalls.

It used to be an inner tube.

[Allan]

I am running two red rubber, metal stemmed tubes in one of my T's. I cant remember which one though! They came out of two Hayes lugged rims which also had rock hard unused Goodyear diamond tread tyres. I suspect someone bought two fully mounted spare rim/tyre/tube combinations that were never used. The tubes are really thick red rubber, with the Goodyear brand on them.

Allan from down under.

[Kaiser]

Every thing old, one day will become new again
https://www.alpha-racingtyres.com/collections/drift

[TXGOAT2]

I used to get a kick out of the illustrated 1950's tire ads, many of which showed a 6.70 X 15 tire that looked like it was 12" wide at the tread ... many years before you could actually buy a passenger car tire with such proportions.

[TRDxB2]

Only if we could use these Burn Out / Drift tires to their potential in a Model T

[speedytinc]

Well, what will they think up next?
See, Gen Z is a useful contributor to society.

[Rich Eagle]

There was a multitude of red bike tires when I looked on the web for pictures. I suppose it's too much to expect to find any existing examples of the old ones. Tires don't survive very well as noted on this Olds Limited. Even the red inner tubes go fast after exposed to the air.

RM Auction photo.
If I may drift the thread a bit, here is some more on Olds Limited:
https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/8 ... 1526696257
And some wonderful details of that car.
http://www.conceptcarz.com/view/photo/4 ... photo.aspx

[Wayne Sheldon]

For whatever it is worth. A few years ago (10 to 12?), at a swap meet I bought an old tire and split rim for a non-Ford car. The tire was old, but probably post WW2, and the tube had an early style metal stem. I needed the rim for one of my cars. The tire and tube were holding air!
A few days later, we needed to go out of town for family something, but I had an hour or so to get a few things done and decided to take the rim and tire apart. I fully expected to find a red rubber innertube inside that tire as had happened a few times before.
However, I got a surprise. With the proper rim tool for the split rim, the rim came out of the tire easily. The small amount of tube showing between the beads was dirt gray, and I began trying to carefully pull the tube out. Then, it ripped! I was barely pulling, but a small spot of the tube had "welded" itself to the inside of the tire, and easily ripped off the rest of the tube. I continued to work it gently, and got most of the tube out intact. And SURPRISE! The innertube was WHITE! The original printed label on the tube was intact, had a brand name, and said it was "Gum Rubber".

Unfortunately, the story has a sad ending.

I wanted to try to preserve the tube as best as I could. I started thinking of ways to protect it, but I was out of time. Other things had to be tended to, and the trip out of town had to happen. That tube was probably eighty years old at that time, and had survived inside an unknown number of tires. With it being torn, I couldn't air it up again, and out time I carefully placed the tube in a safe cool dry place.
When we returned from the family trip, I went out to check on the tube. What I found was a pile of goo! After decades protected from air, ozone, sunlight, etc? A few days in darkness but exposed to air reduced it to a puddle of gum rubber.
I still have it. In a dark corner in my garage, inside a gallon size food freezer bag. A testimony of the fragility of age.

[WayneJ]

Growing up in the 1950's, I remember vintage bicycles from a previous generation that had red tires.

[Nathan Pederson]

RRRed (1).jpg (111.14 KiB) Viewed 2308 times

The car originally had black tires. An excellent suggestion by Rich B. and some computer magic by Rich E. changed things a bit!