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Wide Oval Tires; Firestone or Goodyear?

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If you do not believe all Talladegs came with Firestone Wide-Oval tires pleas look closely at these photos courtesy of “The Judge”, Mary Burke. The sidewall clearly states Firestone and Wide-Oval. The term “Wide-Oval” is a Firestone term just as “Tiger Paw” belongs to UniRoyal and “T/A” to B F Goodrich!

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Over on the Forum there has been some discussion regarding what were the original Talladega tires. Were they Firestone or Goodyear? Thanks to our own Talladega Guru, Rick Ochs, “The Judge, Marty Burke and a little research by me, we now have some clear evidence. The following is edited content from Rick supplemented by my research.

Rick pulled out an old Ford magazine advertisement and it helps put some light on the question. The document shows a Torino Cobra. As most of you know, the Cobra was the base platform for the Talladega. In the brochure Specifications text, it mentions that the Cobra has “F70X14 WIDE- OVAL Belted Tires, raised letters”. It also states “Wide Oval belted tires as illustrated”! If you look at the picture of the hard top it clearly shows “Good Year ” tires.  “Wide-Oval” was a Firestone tire.

One note of warning is necessary hear. When you view old ads or even dealers sales brochures they were not always very accurate. We know these were often used with drawings of the cars or photos of pre-production cars. Often times what you saw in such documents included small details that were never included or available on the final production cars. The infamous dealer Talladega brochure showing a Talladega with a hood scoop is a prime example.

Cover of Talladega dealer brochure.
Cover of Talladega dealer brochure.
Inside of Talladega dealer brochure. Note the Talladega has a hood scoop!
Inside of Talladega dealer brochure. Note the Talladega has a hood scoop!

The following graphics are from a 1969 Ford Performance Buyers Guide that came inside a January 1969 Motor Trend magazine.

ford-ad-1
This is an enlargement of the part of the text above.

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Now, go to the second page of this ad and it says “belted wide-tread white sidewall F70-14s”. ford-ad-2

 

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This is an enlargement of the part of the text above.

Here is the back page of the Dealer Talladega Brochure.

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This is an enlargement of part of the text regarding tires from the above image.

Wide-tread was used by other company’s but only Wide-Oval was used by Firestone. If you look at the Talladega Build Sheet, the proof is the “F”. It stands for Firestone!

One last bit of proof is this quote from the Wikipedia page on Good Year Polyglas Tires:

“The Goodyear Polyglas tire was a bias-belted tire first made in 1967 by Goodyear. The tire had a wider tread than most other tires on the market at the time and used belts made of fiberglass. They initially were an original equipment tire on late 1960s muscle cars such as the Pontiac GTO, Dodge Charger R/T, Ford Mustang Mach I, Chevrolet Camaro Z-28 and many others along with comparable tires from various competitors such as the Firestone Wide-Ovals, Uniroyal´s Tiger Paw and BF Goodrich´s Radial T/A.”

 

 

Richard

Some of my first and strongest memories from my childhood relate to cars. I still remember when things happened based on what car I was driving at the time. I grew up and lived in Iowa for nearly 40 years before moving to Southern California and now live in Tennessee. I was a Corvette fanatic for years but then re-discovered vintage American Muscle. My wife, Katrina, and I decided we wanted to focus on unique and rare muscle cars. After a lot of research we fell in love with the Ford Blue Oval Aero Cars. These were only built in 1969 and and aerodynamics became an important part of winning races. The only purpose of these limited production cars was to win NASCAR races using the Boss 429 and 427 power plants complimented with a special, wind cheating, aerodynamic body. The Ford Talladega and Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II are terrific and historic cars. This site is devoted to these car and their owners past and present. We provide an Online Registry for recording the long term history and ownership of every remaining Talladega, Spoiler and Spoiler II.

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