tires

Re tyres and concorse. Make sure the tyre in the boot is the same as those on the ground.J.A.M.

Harry:
I have a set of 5 original XK120 Wheels with 600X16 Firestone Deluxe Champion Wide whitewall tires mounted to them that I would like to sell. They were used only for concours showing. My car was JCNA judged at 99.9% with them. The wheels are painted silver as per factory original. I sold my car last year into Switzerland with Chrome wires and radials on it. I retained my original wheels and tires. They are still in excellent shape. If you have not already restored your wheels then this could be the bargain of a lifetime for you as I am only asking $1200 for all 5 wheels & Tires. I also have a set of 4 original XK120 Knockoffs (Two Eared)
that are still wrapped from being showchromed. They are beautiful. Email me at mikebmoriausa.com if you have an interest and I will forward pictures of these items.
Mike Bartell

Harry,
If you plan to show your car in concours events, do not install radials as Lee Jacobsen did. Radials were not an option for XK120's in the early 1950's and will get you point deductions. Howard Bollinger is correct: you can use any 600x16 biased ply tires, does not have to be Dunlop. Coker tires is a good source.

The only time I had points deducted from my 53 XK120 was for tires, 25 points, the maximun. Why? The tires were original, plenty of tread, but dryrotted, and the judges deducted (rightfully I might add) due to safety issues as inner tube bubbles were protruding through the cracks and chunks where the tires had broken away. I had driven the car 40 miles to the Jag concours as the tires initially appeared fine. A local tire chain examined them as said they had plenty of tread left. Not after 40 miles! The car was stored locally, and I put new radial Dunlops (same as RAV 4) which fit perfectly (wire wheels ). Tested the car at 110mph and no 'issues' with tires. Car can be seen on page 110 of July 'Automobile' magazine.

Cheers, Lee Jacobsen

Gary is correct, I had 600x16 whitewalls from Coker on my 100 point JCNA national champion 54 XK120 and never had a deduct for tires in two years. No specific make tire is required, just size and structure.

As far as I know the only requirement is that they be cross ply 16-600 size.