Hot Rod Tires How-To - Gotta Drive Fast! Simple question: What's wrong with this photo?   If you answered, A) Dude's running Centerlines on a hot rod (What a loser); Well, you'd be part right. Why would I do such a thing? Does the car look better like this:   Take your time.... YES!! Much better. The bias plys on Bonnie make the vintage look, just like bias plys do on tons of other hot rods going for a straight out of the 50s, nostalgic look. (I'll also agree the backdrop of the Bonneville Salt Falts doesn't hurt!) So why have I replaced my bias plys with radials? Simple: I want to drive... drive fast on the freeway.   I originally had a set of white wall, radial tires on my roadster. I dig the white wall look, but like I said before, I wanted my roadster to be more early 50s looking. Plus the blackwalls look more hard core hot rod to me, like my main focus is running fast, not looks.   Anyway, I had the radials on before, and when people asked, "How fast is it?"...

I've always liked my car... Good thing, right? I guess I always wanted a hot rod. Bonnie, as in Bonneville, sure has changed since I bought her at a Goodguys show. The 3 pictures shown here are the 3 evolutionary changes of the car. Step 1: As I bought her: I was thinking of buying a Zipper bodied Lakes Modified until I found out there's a 6 month wait to get one. I felt pretty lucky to grab this when I did. You'll see the long split wishbones hooked to a 3 inch dropped axle. The rear axle is a old school banjo. The wheels are the 1935 style wires with some hard as hell bias ply or tractor style tires. I'm not sure what kind of paint the original owner used, but that yellow is tough as NAILS!! The engine block hasn't never changed, but it did get updated. I've got the original header on it too. The quarter elliptical spring suspension front and back is there, but there's friction shocks (only better then nothing at all!) in the front and nothing in the rear. Step 2: My...