Thread: Sleeks... When did they start?

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I thought Texans called em "tar's."

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In my small coastal SoCal town, it got popular to run slicks on the street just prior to the winter of 56-57.
Which means the Valley boys - S.F. Valley - and L.A. guys were probably running them 6-12 months prior.

We took a lot of our styling clues as well as performance enhancements from the S.F. and L.A. guys.
Seemed like fads started there and spread outward.

About the widest slick run on the street was 8" tread width.
Anything more than that wouldn't fit the wheel wells of most cars and we were doing good to find junkyard wheels 6" wide.

Like you'd think, the combination of wet weather and slicks caused the loss of more than a few very nice hot rods.
Mostly Shoeboxes, Tri-5 Chevys and 49-50 Oldsmobiles.

Been there myself when I got sideways in a 50 Plymouth and slid a long way until I ran off the road and hit a very small tree with no damage to the car or myself.

A little before and after the slicks-on-the-street craze, guys were using the very soft Atlas Bucron (available at Standard & Chevron stations) tires on the rear of strong running street cars.
An 8.20 x 15 - aside from helping to break driveline components - was as good as a slick on the street anyway.

As a side note, today's wide and soft wrinkle wall slicks don't grab worth a darn on street pavement.
Found that out with little brothers drag racing Henry J when it ran in the low 10's.
Half throttle would just spin the tires on his long and wide asphalt driveway.
It did well on the dragstrip's prepared surface though.

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Rumrumm has a good point on the headers.
They were pretty uncommon on the street, but seen now and then at the dragstrip.

To me, the coupe in the pic could be used in the movie with no problems.
Granted, some of us will know that it doesn't quite fit the era, but the great majority of viewers won't.
If you're striving for accuracy you could get pretty close by swapping to a 7" - 8" wide street tire on a 6" - 7" wde wheel.
Other than that, use the coupe as is.

Rumrumm's also correct in that most engine swaps etc. used manifolds and not headers although home built headers started being seen in the very late 50's.

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Denny, really enjoyed the write-up on the tires.
Thanks.

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GMC blowers on the street weren't common, but they were seen now and then.
Most times 4-71's driven by three V-belts.
Later on 6-71's driven by six V-belts were used.
Now and then you'd see a GMC blower that was chain driven.
There used to be an Olds Rocket powered 34 Phaeton in Santa Barbara that ran a seriously built engine with chain drive blower.
Darndest sounding thing I ever heard on the street.

4-71 blowers were a popular add-on for the 49-50 Olds coupes and two door sedans.
They sat the carb - on top of the blower - high enough that a little bit of the carb top stuck through a carb-sized hole in the hood.
Sometimes a small air cleaner would sit on top of that, but most guys opted for the almost hidden carb.
You had to look close to see them.

Along those same lines, Cragar I believe it was, made an S-shaped carb mount intake that bolted to the blower top, went down to the side of the blower, turned back to level and that's where the carb was mounted.
It allowed for the hood to be unaltered and the blower to be hidden.
(Sleepers have a long and honorable history.)
The V-belt drive GMC blown cars with hidden blower and hood were fairly quiet, but if you listened close you could tell there was something there.

Same thing with the McCullough/McCulluch (SP?) later on Paxton blown cars.
They were quiet, but the planetary ball drive had a whine to it that was hard to miss.

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Here's a pic of an era correct car.
Pic shot by me circa 1955 when I was wandering the high school campus during photography class - if you were lucky you were allowed to take a camera and wander the school during class.