History of 10.50-16 tyres

[mlombard]

Hi

Ok so I know that the subject of CMP / Blitz tyres has been done to death here, and I'm not about to repeat it, BUT I'd like to know the history of some military tyre sizes. So we have:
9.00 x 13
9.00 x 16
10.50 x 16
11.00 x 20
My particular interest is 10.50 x 16, the reason is I was chasing some, like many others.

However I am lucky enough to have access to quite a heap of old tyre catalogues and some Tyre and Rim Association publications. So, and this is where it gets interesting, these catalogues have lots of tyre types and tyre sizes, and they go back to the early 1950's at least.

So I can find all the others sizes in these catalogues, 9.00x13, 9.00x16 and 11.00x20's etc., but nothing, nada, zilch about 10.50x16, they have 10.00x15 and 10.00x20 etc. But,, and here is the really interesting thing, it has 10.50x16 when it comes to inflation pressures etc., and tells me the ply rating etc. So whilst the tyre companies, and we are talking Dunlop, Goodyear and Perdiau etc. here, acknowledge that they exist,, they didn't sell them, well not at least to a civilian market, post WWII. So anybody care to shed some light on this.

[Bob Carriere]

There was also a 9.25x16 lower profile used on HUPs and a 10.50x20...... and other odd period specific tyre size such as for the 18 in. rims.

I would love to get my hands on some new sand tires used in the forties BUT they are no longer made in 16 in. format
except for agricultural use and usually at 16.1 or 16.5 and cannot be used on a licensed road vehicle.

It is possible that the reference books you have are not old enough.......... it is possible that by the early 1950s they were no longer made/listed/sold because there was no demands and lots of surplus military stock.

The only reason 10.50x16 are discussed so much is that someone took the time to reproduce the old size in a modern casing and get them MOT approve for road use.

Simple supply and demand...... we no longer can find 9:00x13 because very few people world wide needs them or the elusive low profile 9:25x16......

There was some rumour that the limited collectors market for the Specialty 10:50 was now in very short supply due to diminishing demand..... some form of market saturation..... and that the current demand was not sufficient to justify running another minimum batch of 2 or 3 hundred.

A few collectors are getting there hands on the remaining 10:50x16 currently in the supply network and storing them for future projects. I am sure a new batch will get manufactured as soon as the demand/enquiries/orders start pilling up BUT when?????

Cheers

[Keith Webb]

20" were generally 10.50 not 11.00.

[Tim Bell]

10.50 x 16 tyres - seen on many UK based Bedford OYDs and the like.

http://www.mitas-tyres.com/gb/product/1013308610000/

Hope this helps

Tim

[mlombard]

Hi

Thanks for the info, about finding the actual tyres. However I'm still interested in the history of some of these sizes, when did they come in i.e you see the size only listed from 194? onwards, and when did they go out (if they did).

I heard years ago that the US military wanted a specific unique tyre size for the Hummer and one of the reasons was to make it unattractive to those with light fingers as it wouldn't fit anything else, I believe that only lasted a short time before other vehicle manufacturers also used the same tyre size, true or not it would make sense, at least in the short term.

Re 9.00-13 Sand Grip Tyres that are or were a Bridgestone product. So again when and where did this 9.00-13 size come from. What lead the British /Canadians to adopt this size tyre, was it a high flotation tyre used on agricultural impliments before the war?, I've seen photos of Bagnold running around the Libyan desert pre WWII in old Ford Model A's with ballon tyres , but they were not 9.00-13's, from memory.

Its all interesting history.

[gjamo]

Some knackered 9.00x13 sand tyres on Gumtree at the moment.

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/toowo...es-/1115463264

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by mlombard

I've seen photos of Bagnold running around the Libyan desert pre WWII in old Ford Model A's with ballon tyres , but they were not 9.00-13's, from memory.
Its all interesting history.

See attached photos for Model A balloon tyres in the Egyptian desert in the early 1930s (Some are Bagnold and some Arkwright).