why did old tires have a white line on them ?

[anyweb]

why do old tires have a white line on them ?

hi guys,

being the proud owner of a 1966 W110, I was wondering why those old cars have white walled tires

so does anyone know why ?

cheers
anyweb

 

[robs-mbz]

Simply fashionable at the time, nothing more, nothing less!

 

[rf065]

Probably derived from the fashion of wearing "spats" over your shoes which was popular around the time cars were being introduced?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spats

Russ

 

[s999sws]

I had a Vespa SS180 scooter which I bought new in 1966, it cost just over £200, and I paid extra for the white wall tyres, as they looked pretty cool, (at the time).
As said, they were just cosmetic.
SWS

 

[Micman]

Found this paragraph on Wikipedia, there's more about it but think this helps explain how they came about.....

Whitewall tires or white sidewall (WSW) tires are tires having a stripe or entire sidewall of white rubber. Early automobile tires were made entirely of natural white rubber, however, the white rubber did not offer sufficient traction and endurance so carbon black was added to the rubber used for the treads. Using carbon black for the tire tread only resulted in tires on which both inner and outer sidewalls were of white rubber. Later, entirely black tires became available, the still extant white sidewalls being covered with a somewhat thin, black colored layer of rubber. Should a black sidewall tire have been severely scuffed against a curb the underlying white rubber would be revealed.