<VV> Mo' tirez

[Padgett]

>Serves as a bit of a reminder that bias ply tires are not such a big
>item on the scale of things that are important

I beg to differ, for an automobile, the tires are the most important single 
item, *everything* relating to performance, handling, and even safety has 
the tires as the limiting factor.

Also, I cannot think of any other element that has improved more. Back in 
the day "All four tires and the driver screaming" was common. Consider disk 
brakes. They were tried in the forties and fifties on domestics but did not 
succeed. It wasn't until tires made their first step improvement in the 
late ;60s that disk brakes were seen on anything other than sports cars.

Next consider that in the early sixties, radials were considered dangerous 
because of their "sudden breakaway".

Back then students were taught to pump their brakes to avoid lockup because 
it was so easy. Today our cars have ABS but unless it is raining, it is 
difficult to lock the tires, tread design and tire compounds have improved 
that much. Also the old tires were notorious for aquaplaning despite being 
narrow. Today it is amazing the size of the tires that are on some light 
cars (like the Solstice) and yet they handle very well in the wet..

I suspect that if suddenly we had to return to the tires of the '60s, the 
accident rate would jump enormously.

Padgett