By Peter Tanshanomi
Vehicles are defined by the era of their manufacture, and those eras are, in turn, defined by the technology available. The configuration of the Model T would have been intolerable twenty or thirty years after its demise, and the concept of an automatic transmission or fuel injection would have been unthinkable at its inception. With every substantive advance in technology, our standards of expected performance, comfort and reliability change and older configurations disappear. Sometimes, technological eras overlap, by a lot or a little. A bit more than a year ago, we looked at production cars that straddled the age of the carburetor and the six-speed gearbox. Surprisingly, the Hooniverse hive-mind was able to name only a single model.
Today, we examine another such pairing of features. Radial tires were a huge step forward in tire construction over earlier bias-ply tires. As the sun was rising for the radial tire, it was setting on another technology: drum brakes were rapidly being replaced by discs. Your assignment for today is to name cars that have one foot in the earlier era and the other in the later. We want cars that came from the factory either equipped with front drum brakes and radial tires, or had disc brakes and bias-ply tires.
The Caveats (there are always caveats):
- Cars and light trucks allowed.
- Production road-legal vehicles only, please.
- This one’s a biggie: OE tire fitment is a bit of a tough call. Many times, a particular model would leave the factory rolling two or more different tires simultaneously, and it’s tough to know if cars today are rolling on the original spec rubber. Likewise, many models were equipped with discs as an option that may or may not have dictated a different choice of tire. Take care to verify your assumedly matched tire and brake really were available together on the particular vehicle you’re claiming to add to the list.
Difficulty: Surprising easy to guess, surprisingly tough to verify.
How This Works: Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates! Bonus points for adding photos. Remember, you can simply paste in the raw image URL now, thanks to the magic of Disqus.
Image Sources: chevyhardcore.com and continental-specialty-tires.com.
Robert Crespo 
Jeff Glucker 
Kamil Kaluski
You’re probably going to find a lot of cars with optional front discs and bias ply tires. First gen Mustangs are one example.
I think you might want to amend this to REAR discs and bias plys. Front disc brakes became available 5-10 years before radial tires were common.
Agreed. Many cars from the mid-50s to the mid-60s would qualify, particularly European sports cars like the TR3, etc.
Corvette got disc brakes in 1965, radial tires weren’t available from the factory until 1973.
Yeah, they went from four-wheel drums, to four-wheel discs.
But 316 people took the $64.50 credit to get 4 wheel drum brakes in 1965.
All descendants of Ettore Bugatti.
Or Jack Benny.
Who needs brakes when there are so many anchors around?
Three hundred and sixteen people were stupid.
Wikipedia says Michelin owned Citroen in 1948 when the 2CV was the first production car with radial tires. I presume drum brakes were the only choice.
“In 1949, the revolutionary Michelin “X” radial made its public debut and was offered as optional fitment on Peugeots, the Citroën 11 and Simca 8.
It was the Italians who led the charge to fully embrace the advantages of radial tyre construction. Lancia was the first, specifying the X tyre as exclusive factory equipment on their new Aurelia.”
source: https://autouniversum.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/michelin-and-the-birth-of-the-radial-tire/
And while the Aurelia was a rather advanced design when it was introduced in 1950 (world’s first production V6, transaxle, standard radial tires) it had drums at all corners (with the rear ones being inboard, because why not ?).
Meanwhile, the 1949 Chrysler Imperial Crown was the first car with disc brakes (both front and rear), but it came with bias ply tires.
That link… perfect info/entertainment ratio with adequate need level. Thanks!
If you’re talking about the early ’70s (when disc brakes started to become available on mainstream American cars, but radials were still extremely rare), I’d nominate the Motor Trend Car of the Year for 1971:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/1971_Vega_Car_of_the_Year_Ad.jpg
The Jag E-Type was one of the first cars with 4-wheel disc brakes, but was originally shipped with Dunlop Roadspeed RS5 tires. These were a crossply tire, but I’m going to assume that when you say “bias ply” you really mean any ply tire and not radial.
http://www.vintagetyres.com/p/the-best-jaguar-e-type-tyres-for-xk-e
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/SeriesoneJag.jpg/1920px-SeriesoneJag.jpg
“With tubes.”
http://www.jag-lovers.org/brochures/xke/egt_tech_16_l.jpg
And the much raced Mk2 Jaguar saloons.
http://vpstestbringatrailercom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/1963_Jaguar_Mk2_3.8_Liter_Sedan_Race_Car_1.jpg
GMC motorhomes had disc brakes and bias ply tires.
http://www.bdub.net/publications/1973%20GMC%20Motorhome/1973_GMC05.htm
The earliest Volkswagen Golfs (rabbits) were available with drum brakes up front.
Yes! Thank you for posting this. I had a friend in high school with a drum brake equipped Rabbit. No one evr believed me when I told them. I was beginning to think I was mistaken.
I have had the same problem. I couldn’t believe they had drums until I actually changed the wheels on my friend’s parent’s then new Golf. There they were.
Bias plys were available from the factory as late as the early 1980s, so there are a bunch with front disc.
Curious how much harder this question would be if you had said “ventilated discs.”
My 4CV Renault had drums and Michelin radials and my ’68 VW Karmann Ghia came with front discs and bias ply Continentals.