Turning wheels

["Mahoney, John" <JMahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Another year, another beginning: another chance to do something worth doing, and, if it's a last chance also, to do it as well as possible.  It's nothing in the grand scheme of living, but whether it's free tuition, room, and board for the undergrad and grad students from New Orleans we have welcomed, or it's just a few words on AMC (among other) auto history, it's the only way to be.  Alive, that is --- and contributing.
     
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My service manual indicates the tires size for my [1960] rambler as 15x6.40 or optionally 15x6.70.

Can someone tell me what width whitewall tire was the factory original?
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Width varied by tire manufacturer, varied within some manufacturers, and some used different versions of tire molds during a model year: AMC's supplier would have determine your OEM-correct size.  The first production use of narrow white walls was on the '57 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (which wore special low-profile tires with 1" white walls); it set things "rolling" and the 3" (or more) wide whites of the '50s became skinny stripes to match the swinging '60s' pegged pants and narrow ties.

Reasonable: 2-1/2" in summer-fall of 1959, 2-1/4" for later production.  

What the Doctor can order today may be close enough to meet your needs:

http://www.coker.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=17420&cat=&page=1

(Remembering, of course, that not -all- the old molds have survived...)

And you can compare white wall widths, on three Ramblers, rather easily:

http://www.amcrc.com/sturb/classic.htm

In 1962, Imperials were photographed with both wide and narrow OEM white walls; in the same MY, Studebaker started at 2-1/2" widths, but by April 1-1/4" whitewalls were used.  A Big Book of Rambler (or an AMCyclopedia) would help raise the standards for judging --- and enjoying --- Nash/AMC.

A couple additional words about PB.

In addition to the red Nash-Healey in the Pininfarina display, maybe the most pro-AMC I saw was a P-car; a pea soup, Hornet-proportioned (given a Nash/AMC cowl-forward stretch, that, even if the Ambassador-ized Concord only rode a 108" wheelbase, would have matched its Imperial K-sized rear fender cap extensions) Packard, and it was something.    

http://www.goodingco.com/pb2005/lot47b.html

It would've been something even more if it had been painted in Teague's copper-brown metallic (or even in black; Classic AMC or Henry's choice.)  Nonetheless, AMC friends, it is the exact sort of "sports sedan" body that your Hornet was derived from.  There are reasons for those skimpy rear doors.  

Perhaps the most anti-AMC I saw was a C-car: not a Chrysler 300 from the '50s or a flying brick HEMI from 2005; a T150-C F&F by Talbot-Lago which a TX trial lawyer who spends his (your? our?) money with abandon (~$100 million on ~600 old cars in recent years; he gives to charities, also:) 

http://www.law.uh.edu/libraries/oquinnhistory.htm

http://www.lawndaleartcenter.org/

bought for a bit above its original ~$87,000 [adjusted-for-inflation] 1938 MSRP.  He paid ~$3.5 million, and after it's restored --- yes, it will need an extreme makeover --- it'll be back for its close-ups, hoping to win at next year's Pebble Beach.

(He may buy a car from Eddie, if he turns to Franco-American machines...)

Yes, it's madness, and it has little to do with AMC, but it should make us all appreciate the fact that AMC is still affordable, and, with some efforts toward making it more sociable and respectable, one of the best old-car places to be.

Some of what I saw did have to do with AMC and may interest you also.

http://www.russoandsteele.com/index.php?action=dsp_function&functionID=8&ID=5972

http://www.rmauctions.com/events/auctionresults.cfm?sCode=MO05

http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/public.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=EUR&screen=Catalogue&iSaleNo=13184#

I didn't buy any bricks from the Brickyard: I already have enough from the Great Arrow Drive factory.  (And does anyone here have any pieces of the original Nash/AMC buildings?)