COKER CORNER PERIOD CORRECT VS. PERSONALIZED Founded in 1958, Coker Tire Company is the world’s largest manufacturer of tires and wheels for collector vehicles. With authentic brands such as Firestone, BF Goodrich, Michelin and more, the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based company supplies a 100-year range of tire fitments for classic cars, muscle cars, Hot Rods, classic trucks and more. Coker Tire also offers a wide variety of American-made steel wheels and high-quality accessories for numerous applications. Find out more about the extensive product line at CokerTire.com. Every collector car enthusiast has important decisions to make when it comes to restoring, maintaining or potentially upgrading their old car. There are pros and cons to any build style, but it’s all a matter of preference. We’ll use a 1969 Camaro as an example, since there is a nice balance of trends, ranging from period-correct restorations to Resto Mods and beyond. If you’re working with a legitimate Z28 or COPO car, then you probably don’t want to wander too far away from that original formula, but if your project is a standard Camaro with considerably less historical value, the door is wide open for modifications that can lead to a more comfortable or fun experience. Even though we used a Camaro as an example, the same can be said across all types of muscle cars, pony cars and even classic cars from the 1950s. The real decision is whether to strive for correctness or personalization. Tires and wheels are often the first thing that people change when they want to personalize their old car. It can be a simple conversion from bias-ply to radial tires, or it can be a drastic change from original 14-inch wheels to a set of 20s. Either way, the question often revolves around the positive or negative effect that tire and wheel choice has on your car. Of course, here at Coker Tire, we’ve spent decades illustrating that the proper tires and wheels can add value to your vehicle. You can take that however you’d like, but we view the word “value” as a subjective measurement that can be broken down into three factors: monetary value, sentimental value or pure fun factor. MONETARY VALUE If you’re strictly looking at monetary value, then authentic bias-ply tires on vehicles built before 1975 will often help potential buyers understand that you’re willing to sacrifice comfort for the correct combination. And if you’re willing to go to those lengths, you’ve probably also spent a great deal of time and effort ensuring that the rest of the car is authentic. So, continuing the Camaro example, a keen eye can spot a set of steel wheels off of a 1980s S10 truck and modern generic radials from a mile away. It immediately inspires doubt that the rest of the car is authentic. But if that same buyer walks up and sees the correct XT-code steel wheels and proper alphanumeric bias-ply tires, he or she may be willing to take a closer look. Bias-ply tires like our Firestone, BF Goodrich and US Royals are built from original molds that have been refurbished, so they’re as authentic as you can get, without sourcing a set of well-preserved originals. Most often, 50-year-old original tires are stained, dry-rotted or otherwise unusable, so our authentic productions offer the correctness factor needed for a by-the-book restoration. SENTIMENTAL VALUE Do you have a specific memory of a car from your high school days that you’d like to replicate? That’s where sentimental value comes into play. We all have those images burned into our heads, and whether you grew up in the 1950s, 1960s or beyond, there are certain time periods that stick with you. For many muscle car enthusiasts, it’s the 1970s that holds a firm place in their memory. Shackles, side pipes and wild paint jobs were all the rage, and tires and wheels were an important part of the “street machine” recipe. So, for those focused on sentimental value, you may be inclined to look at era-specific options, even if they are not 100% correct for the car’s showroom condition. 114 // MECUM.COM
