do early 3500 GT owners want the original crossply tyre? like the A6 and 250F.

Hi

Currently we have the 6.00V16 crossply Pirelli Stella Bianca.

https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/pirelli-collezione/stella-bianca.html

There are more sizes on their way.

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Hi

Yes its a bit of a shame isn't it, but i do think the 3500GT fitted 6.50-16 Stella Bianca.

This is an interesting picture for historic Maserati i think.

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On the left is the 6.00V16 Stella Bianca, in the middle the 185VR16 Cinturato CA67. then next to that the 205VR15 CN72 of 1964

So for the A6 and 300S and all that early stuff from Maserati, the 6.00V16 Stella Bianca is perfect.

The first 3500 GT i think fitted the 6.50-16 Stella Bianca. then they moved onto 185VR16 Cinturato CA67. The current 6.00V16 Stella Bianca is a bit taller than the 185VR16 CA67. I would love it if someone went out on a limb and fitted these tyres to a 3500GT i think they would look great.

The 205VR16 CN72 tyre in the line up is interesting, because it is maintaining the diameter of the 2 previous tyres, which is why cars like the Mistral changed from 16" wheels to 15" wheels to fit the biggest tyre of the day that could be fitted to Sports cars.

Also if you look at the Borrani wheels made for the 3500GT https://www.borrani.com/maserati-wheels/3500-gt.html they make some 15" tyres which will have been so people could fit this modern technology to their cars.


Currently we have the 6.00V16 Stella Bianca on the shelf.

In production with Pirelli we have the 5.50-18 Stella Bianca which will be perfect for 6C Alfa Type 57 Bugatti, 3.5 Derby Bentley, Talbot and Delahaye etc of the 30's and actually just this weekend i saw a mid 1920 1.5 litre Maserati that belongs to a freind of mine and is one of my favouirite cars, but that had 18" wheels too.

the next tyre in production will be a 5.50-16 Stella Bianca, which as far as Maser fans are concerned, will be fantastic because then we have the right set up for the 250F (Phwarr! another favourite) I beleive the 250F ran 550-16 front and 600-16 rear. I beleive that on some tracks the 250F ran 6.60 on the rear. There is a plan that in the near future i hope to encourage Pirelli to make a 650-16 as well.

If Pirelli do make a 6.50-16 Stella Bianca, will you guys buy them?

 

oo they are great thank you for that.

Interestingly they also did 600X16 Firestone, which seems odd, as it would be my guess that that was for the American market, where often with cars like this from this period larger tyres were offered for the States because handling would be sacreficed by fitting the bigger tyre which would offer a more comfortable ride.

That manual also says:
Ruote (wheel or maybe rim)
A dischi formati da 550 X 16 con attacco al mozzo per mezzo di 4 pri gionieri.

who can say what they are banging on about ther, but my guess is "all 4 wheels are 5.5" X 16" which kind of suprises me a little bit because my Borrani book says
57 - 64
5.00X16 RW3421
5.00X16 RW3646
5.50X400 RW3661

So the later 400 mm wheel has been made to fascilitate fitting cheap 400mm radial tyres. Pirelli were making the Cinturato since 1952. But Michelin were making 400mm Michelin X tyres whcich were dramatically cheaper and importantly considerably more available and accessible because the Michelin X was fitted to the Citroen traction Avante on every street corner. Though the Cinturato came out in 1952 it was very much a slower starting tyre and only fitted to very exotic cars.

then the book says

61 - 63
5.50X16 RW3707
5.50X16 RW4495

Im thinking that 1961 was probably when they started fitting the 185VR16 Cinturato as standard. Radial like a wider rim.

Id like to try to clarify the detail to get this page better https://www.longstonetyres.co.uk/classic-car-tyres/maserati/3500gt.html

Also on that early manual it is suggesting 1.5kg front and rear, and 1.9Bar per uso sportivo (i think i know what that means)

Now that tyre pressure recomendation is for crossply.

I have a particularly confusing Pirelli fitment guide which seems to be specifying 22psi front and 30 psi rear.

I have another guide which says 25psi front and 29psi rear for crossply and then the same for radial.

I'm doubtful about all of these pressure recopmendations, because they are offering a different balance to the owners manual, and in my mind radial needs more pressure than crossply. which is kind of backed up by another funny fitment i have come accross for 185R400 radial at 28psi front and 31 psi rear in 1962. I would thiunk that would be my best guess of a radial pressure.

Does anyone have more data on radial tyre pressures?

Does anyone know how early they started fitting radial tyres as standard?

Is there anymore pictorial evidence of tyre and wheel detail that i can put on my web sites to make them an accurate guid?

The 600-16 Firestone versus 650-16 Pirelli thing is a bit baffling. these days i would very happily recomend the 6.00V16 Stella Bianca because we had 2 technitians over from Milan when they started making these tyres and we went and did a test day with a couple of very fast cars and 3 drivers, 2 of which are really good historic racers, one not a racer at all. However all 3 plumped for this style of carcass that went into production, so we know they are good.

It would be nice to have the dimentions of the 650-16 Stella Bianca Pirelli that they fitted ion period.

Has anyone got the Stella Bianc tyres on a Maser? if so can we have some pictures please.

 

Oo nice. I casnt really see that clearly on these, but they do look like Stella Bianca. The grey one is pretty clear.

 

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Is that Stirling Moss?

 

Have i ever posted this.

It was something i was glad to find in the Pirelli archives when i was there a few years ago, because there was a little discourse among some people about the start dates of the Cinturato, suggestin that it was a 1960s tyre, but this brochure of race results in 1954 displays them. OK it wasn't printed untill 1955, but it is about what happened in 1954.

I wonder what year would you suggest the 3500GT started fitting 185VR16 CInturato instead of 650-16 Stella Bianca?

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