Firestone steel radial 500 Corvette tires 1973 -77

[Ralph Spears]

How much interest is there in these tires for show and display cars These are the tires that were recalled back in the seventies.

[napa68]

Originally Posted by Ralph Spears

How much interest is there in these tires for show and display cars These are the tires that were recalled back in the seventies.

To the right person, there is interest. The problem being they have been known to let go without air pressure in them much less with. That will make a mess of a fender or a tire carrier

[L_e_e]

I think NJSTEVE? had one of those Firestone 500's go out on him.

[Formula455SD]

Surprised they haven't started reproducing these.

[Ralph Spears]

Didn't the Trans Am use the same tires ? GR70 x 15

[danachevroletfor1967]

I know they used them on 1978 Z28's, not sure about 1977's or 1979's.

[John Brown]

I had five of them replaced free on a 74 Corvette I bought used. Firestone didn't care that I wasn't the original purchaser, they just wanted to get them off the road.

Must have been in late 80 or 81. Corvette was a used car I was redoing. I heard on the TV about the recall, and that it was ending in a few days. I had the Corvette at a body shop in the middle of a repaint, so I went over there driving my 76 Monte Carlo and swapped tires and rims from one car to the other. As I recall, they wanted to see proof that I owned the car the tires were on (the Monte Carlo), but other than that, it was no problem.

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[wayoutz]

Originally Posted by John Brown

I had five of them replaced free on a 74 Corvette I bought used. Firestone didn't care that I wasn't the original purchaser, they just wanted to get them off the road.

Must have been in late 80 or 81. Corvette was a used car I was redoing. I heard on the TV about the recall, and that it was ending in a few days. I had the Corvette at a body shop in the middle of a repaint, so I went over there driving my 76 Monte Carlo and swapped tires and rims from one car to the other. As I recall, they wanted to see proof that I owned the car the tires were on (the Monte Carlo), but other than that, it was no problem.

.

I had a 74 LS4 convert with 7200 original miles that had this tire in the Tub never down split in half.

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by Formula455SD

Surprised they haven't started reproducing these.

There's noooo way anyone would reproduce a recalled tire that killed dozens of people and was part of the biggest coverup by a manufacturer since the Pinto. The name "Firestone 500", alone, is a cursed product line.

When I had my SD455, I hunted down and bought several 1973 Corvette Firestone 500 tires that were unused spares stored in the underbody spare location. Each one, within days of being mounted and installed on the car for a magazine shoot exploded after only a few yards of travel. One even blew up without even being mounted on a rim. The steel cables snapped internally and shredded the drywall that the tire was leaned up against.

Here's a couple photos of one in the process of grenading. They were taken about 10 minutes apart. You could actually hear the steel cords snapping - kind of like the sound of a steel winch cable snapping. I carefully threw it behind the garage until it was done with its death throws.

The funny thing is that the original set on the car lasted fine and never showed any issues. I just took them off to store them since I did not want to drive on them at all.

If you want to PM me, I can forward your info to the collector I sold the SD455 Formula to. He may be interested in them if they are the 1973 version with the solid white Firestone shield logo (not the 1974 and newer, black outline logo)

[fortim]

I was working at Firestone during the early part of the recall; from personal experience these tires were dangerous. I saw way too many blowouts and tread separation, terrifying stuff.
As part of the recall, Firestone pulled them off the road and the serial numbers had to be cut out of every tire. Personally, I wouldn't use original 500 tires on my cars.