Coker Tires, yes, no, maybe?

Any experiences out there.

I have the wide white bias appearing radials that came on my 300G. stacked in a corner in my garage. The car had so much wallow going down the highway at 60 I should have had a yaw string taped to the hood. They may be good for driving off and on the trailer at the show grounds. I bought a pair of Vredstien 185/70/15's for the front of my 68 B'cuda they are H rated so better than volkswagen tires, less than 500 miles on them sidewalls are lumpy like broken belts.

No issues as long as you stay away from the nylon cord / bias ply. See the linky for more info
FROM THE HORSES MOUTH

Cokers on what ? Radial, bias, what ? For some vehicles, there's no other "original" option.

I have the repro F70s for the Road Runners - Goodyear Speedways as original - and they are pretty crappy vs ruts & such.
Seems worse than back in the day - yeah, I'm that old - but the roads aren't any better, so who knows ?
I swap radials on, they drive way better even on crappy roads.

I have repro bias ply polyglas on my ‘71 Challenger and the repro radial polyglas F70s on my 70 Challenger. On many roads the 71 is fine but in some badly crowned roads the car is a chore to keep heading straight even with power steering. The 70 always drives fine.
The Kelsey F70 radial polyglas don’t look perfect but the trade off for good drivability made them worthwhile for me.
Kelsey or Coker, I’d recommend the radial version if available unless it’s a concours show car, in which case you won’t be driving the car much anyway.

Coker was recently bought up be Good Year in a deal where they were already part of some holding company that included most off brand tires. I wouldn't expect any good news coming in the future. That sale took place a couple months ago, I would expect to be hearing some changes in the not so distance future, but you may be OK right now.

Coker didn't have a very good reputation to begin with... but some of their lines of tires are better then other lines. You need to be pretty specific as to which tire line of Coker you are interested in.

Coker or Cooper? I know Cooper got bought out by Goodyear recently. Coker is a specialty reproduction tire company and I doubt a big tire company would have any interest in buying them out.
In fact I think Coker and Kelsey contract with companies like Firestone and Goodyear to make batches of vintage tires from their molds.

I bought a set of repo Firestone Wide Ovals ( bias-ply ) redline tires made by Coker Tire Co. Mounted them up on a set of 6" Cragar S/S mags. Put them on my 69 Dart and took it for a ride. I was shocked, the car is all over the road now. Even almost went in the ditch twice. Don't know whats wrong with these tires, but they are junk. Stay away from Coker Tire. I wasted $700 dollars on tires from them.

I just got FR70-14 Firestone Redline radials that Coker puts out. About 90 miles on them so far, I’d say they are ok, but the rims they went on are bent all to shet, so can’t tell you that much. Felt ok on some roads, felt rough on others, handled like I would expect. They look so different from the bias plys I would say they are loosely based on them at best. At least they have the red stripe.

Coker has a deal with Lucas(has huge display ad of several pages in Hemings each month) tire to sell the firestones. Lucas was in a lawsuit with them for years, eventually cut a deal. Lucas actually has the original molds for the Firestones, which is another story in of itself. I’m not sure how it shakes out as to what molds Coker is using to make theirs, just that some deal was reached in the litigation.

A lot of the repop tires are made in molds that have had to be repaired over the years, you can see areas where they appear patched. My radials have a section like that.

When I bought my 1969 Barracuda back in the fall of 1968, it came with Firestone Wide Oval bias ply tires. After only a few years, in 1970, that original set of tires was replaced with, again, new Firestone Wide ovals. But the 3rd set of tires I bought were radials. I vividly recall being totally shocked at how much better the radials were and that it was such a big and obvious improvement.

Since 1.2 percent of new cars were delivered with radials in 1970, I'm gonna say radials are just fine for original restoration muscle cars.

**quote from NY Times archives 8/27/81:

All new United States-built cars will have radial tires as standard equipment for the first time in the 1982 model year, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company said today.

''This is the first time since the 1968 model year that one tire construction has been standard equipment for all U.S. auto companies,'' said Scott H. Buzby, president of Goodyear Tire.

Through 1968 models, the only tire construction used on new cars was bias ply, and bias-belted construction began to appear on 1969 models, the company said.

By 1970, 86 percent of new cars came with bias-belted tires, and radials accounted for only 1.2 percent of the original equipment market.

The big shift to radial tires began in 1974, when American car makers began making suspensions specially designed for the longwearing, gas-saving radials. Goodyear said the percentage of new cars having radial tires as original equipment jumped from 19.2 percent in 1973 to 43.9 percent in 1974.

For 1982, the only bias-ply tires in new cars will be for temporary-use spares, Goodyear said.

++Unquote

I remember when I put bias plies on my 64 300. It had some cheapo radials on it when I bought it and I "upgraded" to Protracs. I remember how crappily is rode compared to the cheap, wore out radials it had. This was in the late 80's.

I got married and at some point my old lady needed to drive the car for awhile. She hated the bias plies so much that she had radials put on it, I was pissed as she just did it then told me. That was the last time she ever drove "my" car, whatever it would have been.

unless one is going to build a 100% original trailer queen, 100%

I have Kelsey GY redlines on my GTS. They can be a handful on certain roads, but not that bad. Just need to be prepared for some whacky tracking at times. They actually handle curves surprisingly well.
I went with tire beads instead of weights, which I think helps. When I went to mount these, they had pretty miserable road force readings on the Hunter balancer. Also required a lot of weight, which is why I went with the beads. After sitting I get a little bit of flat spotting, but within a mile it smooths out.

I regularly run 116 mph on the repo F70-14 firestone redlines bias ply tires and know people doing 148+ on similar tires. There is a distinct difference in a low quality tire and an old technology tire. Please don’t confuse the two. Bias ply tires wander and follow seams. I know, I drove 1000 miles on them during drag week. That doesn’t make the tire low quality, just old technology. If that is not your cup of tea, go radial. That being said they can suffer from being not exactly round. So finding someone that can road force balance them can help. Just my 2 cents

If you still have them post them for sale, two groups would be interested. The stock restoration show car guys and the FAST racers. You won’t get everything out of them, but you will get something back.

back in the day before radials, there were tire shops that had "tire truing" machines.
these things made bias tires "round" by grinding off the high spots.
not sure if there are any of these machines around anymore.

That is common practice for circle car racers. They can shave them as little or as much as you like.

I have a set of Firestone Goldline Bias ply from Coker I've had for 10 years. They ride as well as any bias ply tire does. Do they suck compared to the radials I took off yep but that's true of any bias tire. They're 100% better than my MT sportsman.

Take a close look at the factory Firestone Wide Ovals in this photo of my car taken in 1970. It's a completely different look than today's tires, which is what you might want if you're going for an original look.

The true repro bias ply

They are not the radial version that looks very different

Here is a picture of the Coker Firestone goldlines bias ply they look just like the original.