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The Forgotten World Of Bias Ply

MoparGuy68

MoparGuy68

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I found an interesting article, written this past summer, about the history of Bias Ply tires and their longevity.

I’m only planning to drive about 500 or so miles per year. With the car sitting for a week to two weeks between drives. So I’m thinking maybe good quality Polyglas Bias Ply tires from Kelsey Tires might be a good choice for my car.. I have a Borgeson power steering system, so perhaps the Bias Ply “wandering” may be manageable when I’m sitting behind the wheel.

I’ve never owned a car that had Bias Ply tires before. So, if I get them it will be a new experience.

https://benklesc.medium.com/they-do...-the-forgotten-world-of-bias-ply-742c43672daa
 
Bias ply red line tires just came off my GTX, dated December 1979
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You could peel out all the way through 4th gear with those pizza cutter tires!
 
I drive most of my cars on Polyglas.
If they are new they handle quiet decent. You start feeling the age at 10+ years in having less traction.

You need to drive more than 500 miles a year. It is too cold outside, do something for global warming, please

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The best thing to happen to tires is/was radial design. Bias tires may look cool but ride like ****. I really don't care about how old or new they are, lots of people will tell you that when they are old you risk your life driving on old tires. yeah whatever, I got other things to worry about, my point is new or old they suck..... Do yourself a favor if you want your car to drive better than it did 50 years ago and you went to the trouble of rebuilding the whole car to make it like new again put some better parts on it. Save the bias tires for shows or just burn em up and make a nice smoke show.
 
If you never had them or if it's been awhile since driving anything with them,it take some time to get used to them.
 
Yep, to each their own. I had the old 'wide ovals' on my Plymouth for many years and it was lousy driving it on roads with ruts, crowns, etc. The tires would catch the ruts and be fighting the wheel. In rain it felt like I was on ice. Suppose ya get spoiled with driving radials on our daily rides. Heck, I drove my Cuda, GTO, and Challenger back in the day before radials were the thing...never remember the hassles, suppose you don't miss what ya never had, lol. I had wide '60's on my Dodge that were pretty good for handling and was the first car I put radials on as I later had to drive it 500 miles a week when I was in a training program with my 1st job out of college. Anyway, when I put radials (later a FFII box) on my old Plymouth what a huge difference, no wander, tight feel, like driving a new car. For the added safety with all the crazies on the road + crap roads radials are like the best thing since sliced bread.
 
They keep you awake and driving the car ! Just the way it should be. They do suck in the snow though.... lol
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simple if you want a soft mushy ride radials if you want to burn the tires down to the cord bias
 
Nevada dan said:
simple if you want a soft mushy ride radials if you want to burn the tires down to the cord bias
Click to expand...
Well I do miss the much longer chirping btw shifts since I got radials...
 
If you wanted to have good steering in the winter with bias ply tires, you put winter tires on all corners with studs. BFG Trailmakers, and Goodyear Suburbanites, didn’t grip as well in deep snow as Firestone Town and Country. We had 3 cars in the family at the same time, each brand.
 
I remember back when...long back when, when we could use studded snows...they ate up the roads huge and those days ended...
 
Never in my life have I ever had so many tires with belt separation and blow outs until the steel belted radial came along. Now when you could get radials without the freakin steel in them, I liked them. Used to run bias ply on the rear and radials on the front just to get away from the bias ply pull but soooooo many people said that wasn't safe. Well, the majority of the ones saying that crap didn't know how to drive! Now if your tires are over 5 years old the big box tire stores don't want to touch them. Also, never did see all that many big rig tire treads all over the damn place 50 years ago like I do now and usually it was recaps was the problem but now it's non recap radial truck tires doing it....and don't dare jack knife a loaded trailer with radials on it.....
 
Goodyear made racing tires in the 70's to go 200+ mph. Radials, no. Bias ply tires were and are good. Tire technology has improved, but they still haven't figured out how to keep them from blowing out just sitting still and if they blow driving down the road we have physical damage to the car. I have had blowouts on bias ply tires at speed (70-90mph), no damage to the car. My opinion is passenger car tires have been going downhill, since the rubber plantations were burned. No real rubber anymore and no longevity in tires that sit. Sure we can get 60-80 thousand miles out of some tires today, but for the average driver they are to old before you attain that mileage if you adhere to the rules. Long story short, I would not be afraid to put those redline tires dated 1979 back on my car and go most anywhere. There is no dry rot, separation or extreme wear, and not a single weight on the set. They drove smooth as glass when I removed them. I removed them because if I had an accident, I would probably be blamed regardless of fault if a slick lawyer looked at the date on the tires.
 
440 4 speed said:
If you wanted to have good steering in the winter with bias ply tires, you put winter tires on all corners with studs. BFG Trailmakers, and Goodyear Suburbanites, didn’t grip as well in deep snow as Firestone Town and Country. We had 3 cars in the family at the same time, each brand.
Click to expand...
For winter driving I had Firestone Town and Country on all four corners. On the '70 Charger and the '74 Cj5.
Back in May 2020. My new Poly-glas getting ready for Carlisle 2020.
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Last edited:
Radials on the front of a car just makes it have extreme oversteer. For most drivers that is a dangerous situation.
Old tires treads have littered the hi-ways, especially in the Summer forever. That is when the trailers and motor homes that have been parked for years are taken out for a vacation.
I got into the tire business in the late sixties right at the time of the bias, bias/belted, radial tire evolution. Bias would wear out in less than a year. The bias/belted were as bad as the new radials for tread/belt separations. Bias ply tires always had a hard ride at proper tire pressures.
Equating todays tires to those days is like comparing an "Abacas" to a modern computer. the good old days were never that good. Our memries or those not old enough the stories get better as the years go by.
Driving at any speed higher than 45 mph on a tire older than 5-6 years is just rolling the dice on either car damage or accident.
 
Jerry Hall said:
Goodyear made racing tires in the 70's to go 200+ mph. Radials, no. Bias ply tires were and are good. Tire technology has improved, but they still haven't figured out how to keep them from blowing out just sitting still and if they blow driving down the road we have physical damage to the car. I have had blowouts on bias ply tires at speed (70-90mph), no damage to the car. My opinion is passenger car tires have been going downhill, since the rubber plantations were burned. No real rubber anymore and no longevity in tires that sit. Sure we can get 60-80 thousand miles out of some tires today, but for the average driver they are to old before you attain that mileage if you adhere to the rules. Long story short, I would not be afraid to put those redline tires dated 1979 back on my car and go most anywhere. There is no dry rot, separation or extreme wear, and not a single weight on the set. They drove smooth as glass when I removed them. I removed them because if I had an accident, I would probably be blamed regardless of fault if a slick lawyer looked at the date on the tires.
Click to expand...
I've had 3 tires over the years that shed the tread....two did a good amount of damage to my vehicles with one doing just minor damage due to going somewhat slow. All 3 were steel belted radial.

MoparLeo said:
Radials on the front of a car just makes it have extreme oversteer. For most drivers that is a dangerous situation.
Click to expand...
Might be for someone that doesn't know how to drive.....me, I like 'some' oversteer but never experienced 'extreme' oversteer with radials on the front and bias ply on the back and I did that for a lot of years and on several cars. And that's exactly the same thing that many told me would happen back in the 70's. Just never understood what 'they' were talking about. Just what in the world is extreme oversteer?? Is it where you move the steering wheel back and forth just a little doing 60 mph and all of a suddent the rear end is passing you up? Tried that too and it never happened.....
 
yella71 said:
The best thing to happen to tires is/was radial design.
Click to expand...
There ya go, short and sweet. Tire safety did not take a backwards path over the decades...
I remember being warned by the "experts" back in the day that older cars built before radial technology
couldn't handle radials; all manner of destruction and deathly ill handling would commence.
Remember "radial tuned suspensions"? Oy.

When I finally bit the bullet and bought my first set of radials for my '68 Bee, it was like an epiphany.
Damn thing handled TONS better, not to mention the ride improved a bunch as well.
Oh...and it stayed under me in the rain, too. Who'd a thunk it?

I'm all about originality and restoring vs. restifying these critters - but I don't have any such issues
when folks put radials on 'em.
 
I ran g60 14's on the front and L60 15's on the rear on my Super Bee, drove them in rain and 6 inch's of snow never bought new just grabbed the used one's from behind the gas station wear them down to the cords and go get another set they didn't wonder and fallow ruts that's just your worn out steering box and drag link they are firmer than radials never had any come apart I cornered hard with them and smoked them down to the third layer of cord I ran 25lbs in the front and 18 rear and the fastest I ever got was 135 on the speedo running 323 gears don't know what that really was because of the larger tire but it was floating LOL , I run radials on my daily drivers mostly because it's such a hassle not to but all my trailers and my roadrunner have bias
 
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