Boxer Tires

Hello. Any Boxer owners out there have a source for a set of original size tires for a Boxer or know of acceptable alternate sizes? Right now the car has Mich XWX 225/70VR15 and 115/70VR15 but they're old, hard and potentially unsafe. I would appreciate any in-put on that subject.

Wil de Groot

 

Coker Tires usually has these in stock. I purchased a set of 4 215-70-15 XWXs for my 365 Boxer earlier this year. They are expensive however at approximately $390 per tire.

 

Thanks. I don't know why I didn't think about Coker although I had no trouble finding 215/70VR15 or the 225/70VR15 rears, (this car has 9" wide rear wheels).
The trouble I ran into was finding the fronts and rears in the same brand. I'll check with Coker though.

Wil de Groot

 

Hi.............

Modern tires are hard to find in 15-inch sizes for a 365 or 512 Boxer. Will forward spreadsheet with information concerning alternatives to the XWX tires when I regain e-mail access through normal channels.

Check the Tire Rack site for a great search engine for tires by size. There is a U.K. supplier of vintage Michelin tires too.......Longstreet [?], as I recall with an old set of brain cells.

Frank.........23005
www.masiarz.net/bb_resource

 

At Tire Rack search for the size, I would go with 255/70/15 rear vs the originals 225s and medium performance category, unfortunately ultra and high performance are not available for 15s with high profile 70 series, going to a 60 series or 50 which have greater tire choices will result in too short of a profile/diameter and give too much wheel gap in the fenders and multiply the low front spoiler ground clearance problem.

You'll find the tires are primarily for classic muscle cars in the 70 series, such as Firestone Fire Hawk, GT Qulaifier, Goodyear Eagle 2, BFG T/A,Yokohama, etc, since these are used on muscle cars they have the raised white lettering which can be removed with brake parts cleaner and mounted on the inside of the tire.

I have not seen a tire with the shiny flat outside rim as the XWX, all have the white letters which can be removed but will still show the outline of them but a set of these tires are cheap under $400 for 4 vs 1 XWX at longstonetires.com for $390 and are superior in grip and ride I am sure to the ancient XWX 60s technology along with the option of putting more rubber on the road for a better appearance and handling, I have heard of going up to 275/70/15s on rear of Boxers.

 

I have a 1978 512BB that came with an old set of VR rated BF Goodrich TA Radials. I was less than happy with them. They were 235/60VR15 front and 255/60VR15 rear.

These sizes are very close to the original diameter of the Michelin XWX's that came on Boxers.

I now have V rated Pirelli Scopion Zeros for the rear and W rated Pirelli P600's
for the front. I spent some time searching and with speed rated being an issue there is not much to choose from. My car is a driver and not for shows so I saw no value in spending the XWX prices for this car.

This was the only way I saw to have matching brands front and rear. They are very reasonable pricewise if you can find them.

Best regards,
Ralph

 

Since we all seem to have the same problem with old tech tires, how about a group purchase of newer wheels say 16 or 17inches with similar widths to save transmissions etc. I would imagine it would be more interesting for a wheels manufacturer to do a batch, we could also share technology on settigs etc.

 

I purchased a set of Kinesis 17" modular wheels with NOS splined inserts and mounted Michelin Pilot Sports, 245/45 fronts and 255/45 rears. Kinesis service was excellent as advertised. Saw their ad in "Forza". The original wheels are being powder coated to original color, waiting for when the correct XWX tires are available once again. Last time I checked, the 215/70 fronts were available, the 225/70 rears were not. So far, I am very pleased with the new wheels and tires, they have transformed the handling of the car, with the exception of their tendency to follow road crowns/ruts on our horrible Michigan roads. If you want a pix of the car with the wheels, e-mail me at [email protected] and I will be happy to oblige.

 

Good idea but I don't own a Boxer. I was just looking for a customer.

I hope you can put something together.

Wil

 

Count me in.
I have a set of 16 and 17 inch aluminum Campy clones on my Pantera.
They look stock and allow me to run modern performance tires.
The original 15 magnesium Campys and tires are neatly stored away in the garage.
I believe these clones were made by Boyd Coddington Wheels.

 

Yeah, I thought about Boyd Coddington too. They could scan an original wheel, modify the dimensions and make a one piece billet clone which could be painted.

I don't think it would be cheap but they would be strong and quick. No patterns or molds to make, no castings to clean up. Having parts cast and machined isn't cheap iether. Anyone with a large CAD/CAM outfit could do it.

 

Hi kevin
do you by any chance know what the weight of your campy clones is, i had considered buying a set for my GT5S to save the original magnesium rims but was concerned about the unsprung weight increaseas the originals weigh less than the tyres! How does the car feel with the larger wheel?
steve

 

If youre going the route of campy clones, maybee even ones like on a 512s or 330p4 I would be very interested in a set for my boxer in 16 or 17

 

Compomotive makes larger 3-piece wheels to fit a Boxer.

They will custom machine them for center locking hubs (remove hubs from your stock wheels & bolt them on the new ones) in England and ship them to their USA distributor. You can use your stock three eared spinners or octagon ones.

They are reasonable priced at around $2,000 a set for 17" ones and they look very similar to a 288 GTO wheel.

www.usacomp.com

I might just go this route, when my TRX tires wear out. It's hard to justify spending over $1,600 for a new set of those old style tires.

 

This sounds like an interesting route. Do you have a UK contact information ?

 

Hi Steve,
I have the 16s (21lbs) up front and the 17s (23lbs) on the rear.
I got them from Marino at PanteraEast: http://www.mapenterprises.net/pe/1024x768/main.htm
With the Dunlop Sport 8000 245/45ZR16s on the front and 335/35/ZR17s on the back and a Wilwood brake upgrade the car is an absolute blast to drive.
I like the fact that this setup still retains the original look.
I'm not a fan of after market rims on cars that had rims designed specifically for them.

I don't know if your familiar with Mike Dailey's site: http://panteraplace.com but it has a ton of good info on Panteras.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I wonder if they can provide the center hubs so that I could retain the stock rims to use when showing the car?

 

How about a group buy.

 

Everyone who might be interested chime in.
I'll give a couple of the wheel fabricators, here in SoCal, a call and see how realistic this could be.
How about a group hug? Go Boxers!

 

A campy replica like on the P3/P4, 512s or late 60s F1 cars would be nice, painted dull grey or silver 16x8 front and 16x10 or 10.5 rear, would give a nice look, the 2 piece GTO type wheels with the polished lip don't look right on Boxers. too modern.

I like my 15" wheels they look right for the car, I am going to get some 3 eared KOs next.

 

Jeff,
I was thinking of a clone of the stock Boxer rims 16 and 17 sizes in aluminum that could be painted the same silver finish the center hub is probably the tricky part.