Tire Brand - Curiosity

[robic58]

Hi everyone-
One of the iron horses in my stable - wears tires of an unknown brand to me. The car is a 76 Cougar XR7. The chap I bought it from had inherited it from his grandpa... and he thought the tires were original to the car, since even to this day, it has only 17,000k.. but I know they're not the originals . The originals I believe would have been Firestone 500- size HR78-14.
The tires are " CAVALIER CXR-8" - p215/75R-14- Sidewall information consists of the usual warnings,etc. - Steel belted radial- tread 2 plies polyester+2 ply steel - sidewall 2 ply polyester.The tread pattern is 7 ribs, centre one is solid. I've only had the car three years, these tires are not very recent in my estimation- they do not carry any info about treadwear, temperature, or traction. It does not say in what country
they were made. Only other information - in a rectangle block
are bold letters "LRR" ,also next to the rim edge it says-
"PB-Neutral" , I presume this relates to balancing... but I've not seen that before..
Can any body shed any light on these mystery tires???
By appearance, they look very good, no cracking, bulging, and of course lots of tread ...

[Jeff Roblin]

Could they be original? Possibly. The metric tire sizing was established in 1976.

www.racelinecentral.com/tires_sidewall.html


Apparently, they still make them:

www.autoextraparts.com/tires1.html

[robic58]

I rather doubt that they are original, given the close affiliation between Ford and Firestone- If memory serves, firestone 500 was a common OEM tire;; occasionally a Ford product might have Uniroyal.
Jeff, thanks to your reference, I surfed the internet a bit; it apears that Cavalier is now a sub-group of Michelin.. though you'll find no reference to it on the Michelin sites.
Mine are pretty old- like I said - no markings as to category such as M+S, touring, etc. ; no heat,mileage, or traction ratings- and NO DOT numbers- or manufacturer number. They appear to have been, still look like,high quality tires.
I'm hoping some member might have encountered this brand before or can shed some light. Cheers- Ralph

[Jeff Roblin]

You're probably right. My '76 came with Uniroyals - atleast that's what the original spare was........

However, dealer's did strange things. ordering cars without radios and putting their own unit ins.......ordering non-vinyl roof cars and adding them (mine is a dealer-installed vinyl roof with hand-made moldings) It 'could' have had cheapies put on and the originals sold at market price to put on another car.

Anything is possible.

[sixty9santa]

I just got my build sheet which states that my car originally came with DR78 x 14/B Radial WSW tires.

[Jeff Roblin]

That would be the smallest of the 14s available, with white-wall tires (WSW). I think mine were the same. I still haver the orginal DR78 Uniroyal in the trunk.