Any source for "classic" radial tires?

[mr moto]

Any ideas on where to find older style radial tires? This seems to fall into a gap in the hobby. What I'm looking for is a good scale replica (something with a real looking tread pattern - not just a few straight grooves) of the kind of European radials that were seen on sports and import cars in the sixties/early seventies before U.S. cars even discovered radial tires. Typically, they were Pirellis or Michelins and they were skinny (like a 78 or 80 profile) since not many fat tires had arrived on the street yet. You can even find old pictures of 289 Cobras with skinny tires. Anyway, I've been kind of checking out the usual aftermarket suppliers and haven't really seen anything like these:

[my80malibu]

I would think that, The Gunze Ferrari kits might have that type of tire.

[38 Crush]

Try American Satco they have some really good choices

38 Crush

[Zoom Zoom]

You are correct, there is a giant, gaping hole in the aftermarket for these kinds of tires.

Forget Satco. Long gone, doubt they offered the vintage tires. Monogram TRX's don't seem to be what you are looking for, they're too modern and they're an odd size. Gunze Ferrari tires? Not even close. The ones in my 250 GTO don't have any tread and are too skinny.

The tires in the Aoshima MGB's are decent radial skinnies; the skinny Michelins that you show at the bottom are done pretty nicely by Fujimi in their Enthusiast Series Porsche 356's. There's a fairly decent set of vintage radials in Fujimi's 250 GTO (incorrect for the GTO but nice nonetheless). The bigs 'n littles in the Hasegawa Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa look good, no sidewall lettering but they look authentic. Revell's standard PT Cruiser (not the convertible) had some pretty decent skinny radials, they're generic but would not be out of place on a vintage model. Ditto with Motormax/Fresh Cherries Gremlin; it comes with some vintage skinny radials that are decent enough.

Sadly none of these are offered by the aftermarket. You'll either be scrounging for them in trades, digging for them at shows, or buying a few kits and perhaps casting extras for yourself.

[mr moto]

Thanks for the help, guys! At least now I have some good leads to follow. It may be that I have try to get a Japanese kit at a low price on Ebay or at a show. I hate to buy a kit just to get the tires from it but sometimes you gotta!