Classic Porsche & Vintage Caravan Tyres at Home in Edinburgh

It's that time of the year again when spring is just around the corner and people are looking forward to adventuring around the UK in either their classic cars, motorhomes or caravans.

But, if you looked out the window now, you probably wouldn’t know we were nearing spring being in the minus degrees along with several inches of snow.

The first customer of the day had booked in for a pair of rear tyres on his 1989 Porsche. Being rear wheel drive, and the customer being a spirited driver, it’s no surprise that the rears were down to the cords!

Classic_porsche

In the 80s this size; 225/50R16 would have been one of the largest sizes on the market with relatively little support from manufactures apart from those who were the OE (Original Equipment) for this vehicle. Namely Pirelli, Bridgestone and Michelin. Nowadays, it’s becoming harder to find alternative options for customers with vintage sizes as the tooling, knowledge and drive has either been lost or is too expensive and not economically viable for low production volume runs. Still, Pirelli has their Collezione department for reviving old patterns such as the Pirelli Cinturato CN12 for the Lamborghini Countach and Michelin still has small volume production of many classic models including the Pilot Exalto PE2, Original Pilot Sport and XZX line up of tyres.

lamborghini_countach_1974_1989

Following on from this customer, we then headed out to a vintage caravan needing three new tyres. Now, these tyres were well over 15 years old and needed to be changed as soon as possible!

Vintage caravan_1

Unsure on how to check the age of your tyres? Click here to find more about DOT codes and checking the age on tyres.

One problem arose when booking this client in, the size. Now, much like the government, the tyre industry moves slowly. But it does continue to move forward. The size currently installed was a 185/70R14 which is now made up exclusively of car tyres, unless you look at vintage options. This customer needed to move to the most recent size of 185/80R14 or 185R14 (both are the same size, some manufactures choose not to put 80 where the profile is. There isn’t a concrete answer as to why…). This size is what most single and twin axle caravans come from the factory with, there are many manufactures supporting this size so shouldn’t be going anywhere for many many years to come.