I quite often get emails from readers asking me where certain motorcycle builders get their vintage motorcycle tires (well, retro motorcycle tires is probably a more accurate description), so I decided to create a post dedicated to the older style tires.
The answer is that there are a few suppliers but the best and seemingly the most trusted, is Coker Tire. They create reproduction tires for both cars and motorcycles including the classic Firestone Deluxe Champion “zig-zag” tread pattern that you’ll see on the majority of custom non-chopper bike builds. They sell whitewalls, white tires, vintage motocross tires, vintage trials tires and even vintage board-tracker tires.
Their prices are very reasonable with most of their tires costing between $100 and $200 USD, which is inline with the cost of mass produced non-specialty tires. Not a bad deal.
Ben Branch has had his work featured on CNN, Popular Mechanics, the official Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with millions of readers around the world and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
This is one of Steve McQueen’s own personal motorcycle helmets, adorned with his name on either side with the logo for his film company Solar Productions. Steve can be seen in very similar helmets in many of the motorcycle races he entered in-period including Bruce Brown’s iconic documentary On Any Sunday. He seemed to prefer…
This trike is a combination of two of America’s great early workhorses – the Harley-Davidson Servi-Car and the Model T Ford. It was built by Sanders Antique Auto Restoration in Rockford, Illinois using an original 1947 Harley-Davidson Servi-Car and a Model T Ford pick bed which was shortened and sectioned to fit the chassis. The Harley-Davidson Servi-Car The Harley-Davidson Servi-Car…
I’d never seen a 1980 Mercury Cosworth Capri before stumbling across this one, and that shouldn’t really be that surprising as only one of them was ever made. The car is a proof-of-concept prototype overseen by the Ford Motor Company but actually developed by the Mercury and McLaren Engines Inc. The Cosworth BDA Connection McLaren Engines Inc. had previously…
The 1965 Pontiac GTO Chief Camino is a one-off vehicle that should almost certainly have been built and offered for sale by Pontiac in the mid-1960s. It never was, but this is probably due to the fact that there’s no indication Pontiac even considered building it. The car you see here wasn’t built by them,…
The Iron & Air x Rancourt & Co. Traveller Boot is a motorcycle boot with discrete protection in the ankle and toe cap, but styling that makes it indistinguishable from regular Rancourt street boots. Rancourt was founded in 1967 in Lewiston, Maine by David Rancourt. Shortly thereafter his eldest son Micheal joined him and the…
The iconic Fisher Bullet Space Pen, named for its sleek bullet-shaped rounded ends, has long been celebrated as an icon of mid-century modern design, and you’ll find examples in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection as a symbol of American industrial design. The Myth Of The Million Dollar NASA Pen vs Soviet Space Pencils The Space Pen…
