Goodyear Tires

[Charley Lillard]

I'm still in a discussion with someone about 69 Camaro tires. I insist that none used Polyglas. There was a Chevrolet reason for that but I can't remember what it was. Any comments ? Any dissagreements ?

[Don_Lightfoot]

Charley, I would tend to agree with you. Firestone & Uniroyal were probably the more common brands. The Z's and I believe the 15" wheeled COPO's got the Goodyear Wide Treads. I think the same holds true for the 69 Chevelles as well. When I bought my 69 Velle a few years ago it had the Polyglas repos on it which is fine with me, I'm not going out and spend the bread on another whole set of tires.

The 69 RS/SS Camaro and 70 Chevelle SS that I ordered brand new way back then both came with Uniroyals.

[bkhpah]

I believe that Chevrolet did NOT use the Polyglas tire in 1969 because of speed rating issues. The Corvette did not use it because of it. Rowdyrat knows more about this topic...BKH

[ORIGLS6]

I tend to agree. I don't recall a Polyglas on any '69 Camaros or Chevelles. The Goodyears were Wide Tread GTs.
Didn't the '70 Corvettes with Goodyears have a 'Speedway GT' or the like? I bought a full set; tires and wheels off a '70 when the owner replaced them with Ansen Sprints and M/T tires. Seems like I remember the word Speedway on them. Still have the wheels but the tires are long gone.

[Maxx]

BKH I can't comment on the speed rating, However to add to this topic most the original 69 tires I've see, sold or owned over the years are all Nylon cord or a similar compound. I believe the "Glas" in PolyGlas is a reinforcement agent in the compound for a technologically advanced tire that came along as the replacement stock tire for 69 and earlier camaros.

[Keith Tedford]

I don't recall ever seeing Polyglas tires on '69 Chevelles and Camaros either. The car we bought new had the PL5 white lettered Uniroyals. My buddy's car came with white lettered Firestones. Our SS396 car came with option PW7 white wall tires. GM documentation doesn't show the brand. The Polyglas tires were top of the line back then. They would have made a nice option. My Uniroyals were woefully lacking in traction.

[tom406]

I recall reading that the Chevrolet engineers didn't trust or had concerns about the "new" Polyglas technology being up to the task on the Corvettes and musclecars. Thus it seems that Buick/Olds/Pontiac all started using the tires prior to Chevrolet. Last time we debated this, I scoured all of my old magazines, looking for pictures of '69 Chevrolets fitted with Polyglas tires. I didn't find one. The earliest Chevy I could find pictured with Polyglas tires was the '70 LS6 prototype/press car shown at the '70 new car introduction. That would have been assembled in mid-to-late '69 to make the September or October '69 issue of CARS magazine.

I did find a picture in Marty Schorr's "CHEVROLET The Performance Years" of a Troy, MI based '69 Camaro ID'd as a COPO wearing what appeared to be 14x7" Rally Wheels and f-70-14 Wide Tread's(not GT's).

[Belair62]

O.K. so what are the correct tires for a Chevelle or Camaro ?

[Maxx]

And when did they change to DOT from a non-DOT tire.

[TimG]

I bought a 69 Indy Pace Car in 1981 from the Chevy dealer that owned it from the time it was new. It had four polyglass tires and a non-polyglass spare. When I asked the dealer about this he told me that he could not order the good polyglass tires and changed all of them but the spare when the car arrived.
The spare was a Speedway Special. Charlie has that original spare in his barn now. Unfortunately, that's all that's left of the car.