NOS tires

[SuperCars]

What year or time frame did the "DOT" appear on regular production tires. The reason I ask is that I've seen early 70's vintage Goodyear tires with "DOT" on them which were not produced by the Reproduction Tire companies of today.

I've also seen a set of vintage Uniroyal Loredo tires of the correct size and exact kind which were used by GM for 67 vettes, and these had "DOT" on them. These were definitely NOS as Uniroyal quit making those many, many years ago, and no Company is reproducing them today.

With this question and realizing that there were NOS tires produced in the early 70's with "DOT" on them, do we still consider those NOS? If yes, the old rule of thumb of asking do they have "DOT" on them would not apply.

[olredalert]

-----Have hung around Corvette circles a bit over the years and am pretty sure that D.O.T started sometime in the middle of the 67 model year.Those with a better memory will hopefully get you closer on the exact time frame..........Bill S

[SuperCars]

Hi Bill, we are probably thinking of the same 67 Vette vintage tires our buddy Jack Murray had, which were definitely NOS. He had an easy answer though, just take a razor blade and shave the "DOT" off. LOL.

[whitetop]

Kevin
The hardcore ISCA show car guys do that stuff all the time. I also think Boyd Coddington is starting to do it on all his high buck street rods. They remove all the lettering from a tire. After you remove the lettering you sand the surface with progessively finer grades of sandpaper.

[Mr70]

I just sold a set of 5 Uniroyal Tiger Paw white letter F70X14 NOS tires.
No DOT label at all,and not shaved either..
I found two more that have a slightly different White letter font,and do have DOT label.
I believe the 5 without are dated 1968 and the set with is 1970-1.

[Tommy]

I'd like to know how you read dates on tires. I have two sets of NOS tires but don't know what year tires they are. One set are E-70-14's (firestone super sports) and one set of F-70-14's (cooper pro 70). Both sets have DOT markings on them.
Tommy

[Kurt S]

From JohnZ:
Don't know about Camaro tires, but here's the skinny on 1967 Corvette tires. Original tires do NOT have DOT markings, which are usually found near the bead on the back side of the tire. Original non-DOT 1967 Corvette tires had "4-Ply Rating - 2Ply Construction" molded in, and later DOT replacements have "Load Range B" molded into them instead. Corvette redlines were nylon construction with a 3/8" red stripe, and were either Firestone Super Sport, Uniroyal High Performance, or Goodyear power Cushion.

John

[SuperCars]

I would agree that original tires that came on a new car from the factory in the 60's would be non-DOT. But replacement tires of the exact kind made by the original tire manufacturer in the following several years, most likely could have had DOT on them. Wouldn't these fall into NOS category as they were vintage production by the same companies and not produced by the reproduction tire companies today such as Coker and Kelsey Tire Companies.

I suppose to answer my own question, the "correct" NOS tire for a car of that time frame would be NOS ones made earlier in production with no DOT label on it; rather than later production NOS DOT labeled tires, even though they were produced by the same tire manufacturer.

[Keith Tedford]

I still have the '69 F70X14 Uniroyal spare tire from our Chevelle. I'll have to check for the DOT. At some point it became illegal to run non-DOT tires on the roads, up here at least, in the cold frozen north.

[Enoch]

I've run across many sets of laredo blackwall tires with the dot. I recall Kevin at LI corvette repair hade bought a few dozen in the mid 80's when I worked there. Many times I recall wet sandind the dot off. I think the were all post 70 runs. I'm not sure on the date.
Supercars, would Jack Murray be "Furry Murry" from Calif? And is that who you got the 64 big tank car from?