Blockley Vintage & Historic Tyres

Blockley Tyre Specification
Blockley wanted to produce the highest quality tyre suitable for pre war cars - with authentic appearance and handling characteristics. These are the first tyres produced for pre war (and early post war) cars that are not only suitable for road and competition use but are manufactured to the highest standards of the industry as demonstrated by the high speed rating. Blockley tyres have set the new benchmark, which other manufacturers may wish to follow in due course, raising the standard and increasing customer choice.

A good-looking 3 block tread pattern, with an authentic pre war feel to it, the design of which has a superior wet weather performance over anything I have experienced. Its overall width is of a slim nature, which is not only traditional but helps with airflow to the brake drums on higher performance cars, negating the need for offset rims. The tread width itself offers maximum contact area. A product that does not look out of context on any pre war car.

It is designed to correctly fit rim widths available in period (typically 3 inches for 500 and 2.75 inches for 4.50 sections). Presently the higher performance road cars fitted with, say, a 5.00x19 race tyre have had to be fitted with a rim measuring 4 inches across the well as recommended by the manufacturer - A ludicrous situation as cars did not have such wide rims originally.

As an example G.P Bugattis, with their aluminium wheels having a width of only 2.75 inches either have to fit these same tyres, or fit non-standard wheels - either solution being unsatisfactory. Blockley tyres address these shortcomings.

The rubber specification is no softer than "204" which is the VSCC and FIA standard chosen. Although a road tyre Blockley is designed to be "on the pace" with other brands when it comes to circuit racing which has already been clearly demonstrated.

Particular attention has been paid to overcome the "chunking" problems witnessed with other makes of tyre.

At present old car tyres are exempt from any of the legislation requirements expected of current vehicles tyres. Blockley tyres on the other hand have been subjected to a 130mph (H) speed rating and D.O.T. (Dept. of Transportation) testing for the USA. The reason for choosing such a high speed rating when so few of our cars can attain this speed is to ensure a high design and build quality which affect roundness, balance and so on. This is of benefit to any vehicle, such as my Riley '9' (which was the reason for producing the 4.50 x 19)
It is almost unbelievable to think that the Blockley range of high speed rated cross ply road/race tyres (including our new range of 16") are the only tyres available for historic cars which DoT marked for the US market.

Any tyres running on wire wheels must be fitted with a good quality rim band and inner tube. Due to Blockley product liability insurance, tyres should be fitted with 'Classico' inner tubes (available from Concours Rubber and Tyre Products ltd. which you can order at the same time). Vehicles capable of speeds in excess of 100 mph should be fitted with racing tubes. As far as I am aware there is no other make of race tube manufactured other than "Classico" in any case.

Size	Tread Width	Overall Width	Overall Diameter	Optimum Rim
550 - 15	4.80	6.30	25.80	4.00
550 - 16	4.40	6.75	27.10	4.00
600 - 16	5.01	7.52	28.00	5.00
650 - 16	5.32	8.00	28.90	5.50
450/500 - 18	3.65	4.85	28.20	2.50
550 - 18	4.53	5.91	29.80	3.00
350 - 19	2.74	3.70	26.00	2.25
400 - 19	3.20	4.30	28.20	2.25
450 - 19	3.60	4.70	28.70	2.75
475/500 - 19	3.70	5.20	28.70	3.00
500 - 19	3.70	5.20	29.60	3.00
550/600 - 19	4.30	5.86	31.00	3.50
650/700 - 20	5.16	6.93	33.40	4.00
525/600 - 21	4.70	5.91	33.00	3.75
700 - 21	5.40	7.32	35.00	4.00
Further sizes will be produced dependent upon the customer demand.