Hi guys!

Just wanted to let you know that the tire that is in the works currently is the Gooyear Gatorback for the '84 and the '85-88 Vette. The 84 will be correct with the impressed letters. Lots of items and lessons being learned.

Patience will be rewarded!!!!!

 

Any word on 245/50's?

 

Nice!!!

 

Toyo Proxes have always worked well for me.

 

Not yet, but like I said, some hurdles are being cleared and lessons learned!!! Once the Vette tires are done, I am sure we will be seeing the 245 appearing on the horizon!!!

 

I will need new tires in 7 years so I hope by then
they will be too old to run on then

 

 

It has been a few months, any update on the 16" Gatorbacks?

 

I'm ready for a set as soon as they are available!

 

Heck, At this point I would almost be willing to take anything that was 245-50R16 in a Goodyear. I do not think they even make that size tire any more.

 

Indeed GY discontinued their last remaining 245-50-16 tire back in the beginning of June, frankly it was well north of $200 and not worth the $ IMO.

BFG makes the only "summer only" 245-50-16 tire on the market today that really works well.

 

So the F1s are done now too?

 

I found: in size 245/50R16 tires
BFG g-force SS A/S (W rated)
BFG g-force Sport Comp 2
Cooper: Zeon RS3-A
Cooper: Zeon ZPT
Doral: SDL
Falken Ziex ZE-512
Falken Ziek ZE-329
Falken Ziek ZE-502
Falken Ziek ZE-912
Federal SS-595
Firestone Firehawk Wide Oval Indy 500
Goodyear: EAGLE F1 GS-D3
General Altimax HP
Hankook Ventus V2 Concept H437 97H BW
Kumho Ecsta AST
Kumho Ecsta ASX
Kumho Ecsta PA31
LC Radial All Season Radial Perf Z
Michelin Pilot Sport A/S+
Maxxis MA-Z4S Victra
Nitto: NT01
NITTO: NT555R
Nexen CP641
Riken RAPTOR ZR
Sumitomo HTR A/S P01 (W rated)
Sumitomo HTR A/S P01 (H- or V- Rated)
Toyo Proxes 4
Uniroyal Tiger Paw GTZ All Season
Yokohama: AS430

Searched Tirerack.com, Discount tire.com, belletire.com, Big O Tires, Kan Rock Tires, Wal*Mart, Sams Club, onlinetires.com,

Found the GY F1 at Big O, no where else... I actually am not a fan of Goodyears, but I want them for originality on my 36K mile car...

 

I like the generals. not original but soften the ride a bit and nice grip

 

I got the Yokohama ES100 several years back... I love the way they look on the car, but I absolutely hate how they drive. They wander all over, a crack in the road means I am going one way or another... Just by changing wheels and tires I got this... The ride is good, the grip was good when new (getting old) the look was killer, handling was good, but they just wandered all over... The car did not do this prior to the new tires mind you...

 

I was looking at 245/45/17 tires the other day. Goodyear does make the ZR Gatorback tire in that size. But get this. The Gatorback costs $3/tire more than the same size Michelin Pilot Super Sport

The Michelin Pilot Super Sport is arguably the best tire on the market today. They come standard on the new C7 Z51 Corvette, ZR1, Ferrari, Viper, and Porsche GT3. They also have a longer lifespan than the Gatorbacks.

 

any word lately?

 

http://www.primewelltires.com/PZ900.I had these put on 6/11 at a Firestone Dealer,handle great,quiet,It's a nice inexpensive alternative to Gators.

 

It's a Chinese import. I bought a Mustang with a set of Chinese tires on it. They seem OK so far.

 

From all the reviews so far,
I honestly wouldn't buy a set of those tires other then for orginality purposes. My uncle and I were searching hard for a set to fit his 85 Iroc-Z but to no luck.
Fast forward to about a month ago, I come across 3 original 245/50VR16 gatorbacks and of all places a honda dealership near downtown chicago. I was doing inventory control there and came across them on a tire rack that had the words DNI (do not inventory)...As i applied my hands on them i could tell how hard they were and even though they had alot of tread on them, i'm sure those tires weren't good for anything other then for display. (perhaps that was the reason why they were still around there.)

The experience i had in the past was as followed: I bought my 87 T/A and put a set of Goodyear HP tires. I loved the look of the sidewall design and the tread design was great. It did good in wet and dry roads, especially cornering. They balance out okay too, didn't even had to put more then 1 oz. of weight for each wheel. After i sold the T/A, i bought my GTA and they came with goodyear GTII's. They were okay tires but didn't feel that grippy (even on dry road), more like you were driving on egg shells, but it could of been because they were wearing out pretty bad. I end up buying a set of the Goodyear HP plus4's (these replaced the HPs) and man they were expensive! i believe they were over 225.00 for one! I didn't like the side wall design either as it was pretty bland and bare.
After balancing and mounting on the wheels carefully, they started out being great tires, but since i kept my car stored at my uncle's house during the winter months and the car didn't sit on stands but rested on all 4 tires, the tires would tend to develop a "heavy" spot and become unbalance. Therefore i would have to rebalance the tires and even though they end up being balanced, i still felt like the tires still had issues. Which I complained to my goodyear reprensented at the time and his solution was to put the heaviest part of the tread where the valve stem is and this would help counter act the offset balance. Which i didn't believe him at all. I did what he mentioned and of course i think he was full of baloney, because it didn't help resolve the problem.
Anywho, i haven't experience any other brand for my 3rdgen other then goodyear, and i wouldn't recommend buying the F1s, if they're still around.

 

they are 25 year old tires... of course they are hard as a rock!
the old ones were not like that in their day. the ones that they are thinking about reproducing are with current compounds so they would be even better I bet.

 

I'm curious if you know/can find out how the dealership ended up with those tires.

I lived in Chicago 25 years ago, worked on the outskirts of downtown. And in my company's shop we kept a spare set of Gatorbacks for my car. Eventually my company moved to a new location, and when packing up the shop, my tires had disappeared, nobody claiming to know what had happened to them. The worst part was everyone suddenly realizing there was a thief among us. Because of their size, the tires would've been virtually useless to anyone else and probably ended up never being used, maybe even eventually found by someone at a dealership, or turned over to a dealership to see if they could salvage a sale out of them.

I know it's a stretch lol, but I've always wondered whatever happened to my tires. It would be nice if you could inquire about them.

As for the topic, I'd buy a new set of Gatorbacks, preferably ZR, rather than VR. As already noted, the correct size 17" Gatorback is available. Would be nice to see the 16" too.

Edit: Up in post #202 it was mentioned that Gatorbacks are being redeveloped for the 1984 Corvette, which is the car Goodyear created Gatorbacks for in the first place. The 'Vette used 255/50/16, which is slightly taller than a 245, but will fit and work on thirdgens. There are people here who have installed 255 on their thirdgens, at least, on the rear. So if the 245 is never made, at least we will have the 255 as an option. Doubtful many people would notice the difference, might even look better.

 

Anybody looking for a set of 4 tires for sale, I have them. They where taken off my 9k original mile 90 iroc. They have been out in storage, no cracking, laid on there side and I would 60% tread still there.

 

Exactly!!!!!


It's so ridiculous when someone posts something like, "the 10-20 year old Gatorbacks on a car I once bought sucked".

These tires were awesome when new and considered a performance benchmark.
Would they last 60,000 miles? No.
Were they good in the snow? No.
Were they as good or better a performance tire than anything on the market back in the day? Yes.

And considering how our tire choices are slimmimg down literally by the day, a modern compound Gatorback repro, would probably outperform most of the all weather, generic tires we still have available in our size.

 

Bump to the original poster, any updates on these tires?

 

How much are you wanting for these?? Are they Z or V rated??

 

Bump! I really want to buy a new set of these tires.

 

Voted.

 

I wouldn't buy 'em. They were on the Formula when I got it. I liked how I had the same tire as a Vette, and my car DID take a 90 degree city corner once at 40-45 mph WITHOUT a PEEP from the tires , and I liked the wide contact patch (not all tires have the same contact patch even though they're the same size, so I liked how all you saw from the rear of my car was beefy tires because they are no ground effects to hide the tires, but they were noisy as a 4x4 on the highway.

 

The tire companies changed the speed ratings over the years. The V rating is now what the Z rating used to be. FYI.

 

 

would they last 20,000? just barely!

 

Probably about right. And I'm fine with that.

 

Yeah I agree. I was speaking of the the originals though
and I woudn't care at this point

 

I wouldn't buy Gatorbacks regardless of the compound used for the tire for any car that is driven. Tread design has improved as well.

For a show car sure if it was factory stock.

 

I would buy them. I was just looking them up for my new 1989 Formula and was bummed that they aren't available.

Now for everyone complaining about them: I owned a 1988 Formula with gatorbacks on it ($200 bucks a piece back then) and I drove that puppy year round in New England and never, ever got stuck. Yes, my driving skills are incredible but still, if I could score a set of gatorbacks, I would. The car came with them and they looks awesome.

 

Hate to do this but....I have a new set of GSC's 245/50/16s
$1000
or they go on my GTA convertible and I'll have fun driving on them

 

V rating was always 149 mph max.

Z rating is over 149 mph.

The newer ratings are W (168 mph) and Y (186 mph) tires.

 

I'll put them on my 89 Formula 350 vert when/if they come out.

 

Hell no back in the day ran NOTHING but DUNLOP D40 M2's I bet I put at least 10-12 sets on the rear. Great tire for 15k miles..... for some reason I always got more mileage out of the fronts? I also always hated the different wheels front to rear. Real pain to dismount and move fronts to rears to save some $$$ back then....
87Oldschool

 

Lemme get this straight....

You wouldn't get the Gatorbacks, but you'd get the Dunlops, even though you went through "at least 10-12 sets"?

 

I went through 6 rear gatorback tires a summer back in the day!!! Left A LOT of goodyear snot on the roads!!!!

 

Big spender!

 

Yeah I'd buy them just to be original but now I have dozens of brand choices. I have 3 brands on I think, Had Falken, Cooper, and I think 2 Kumhos?

 

Any updates?

 

I actually had a decent hook up sooo it wasn't that bad..

One thing I did back then was burn up a set of 20 mile 85 iroc wheels and gatorback tires, I knew, even then, it was bad to do ..
They would have been perfect on that Iroc that was pulled out of the semi trailer.
Beer and youth make us do dumb things....

I have 2 early 255/50/16 gatorback tires from vets with the indented lettering and 2 245/50/16 gatorbacks (normal letters) both with about 200 miles on them.

 

I have Goodyear Eagle GT-HR 245/50-16s on my red GTA and I really like them.

The Notchback has 245/50VR16 Eagle GT+4s on it. They have the same contact patch as the original Gatorbacks had.

Would I buy repop Gatorbacks? You couldn't run fast enough to give me a set...

 

Sorry, you can't say Gatorbacks and Dunlops in the same sentence! The Gatorback's were terrible in the rain and did not hook anywhere near the D40's. Why the 10-12 sets.....,well its a 200,000 mile car and I am a driver....! Getting ready to do a radical LS /T56 swap. As time marched on and now need to do brake upgrade as well options are plentiful. Going to 17's or 18's (the same on all 4 corners) I won't have to deal with the inability of rotating tires. That was always an issue with front and rear spec'd wheels from the factory.
If the Dunlops were available today (new) I might buy them. I have a very decent set on the car now but it was in the air for 13 years and would not feel safe with the age on them now. I most likely bought the last set in '99 before I took it off the road.
Now, it's grandpa's time to play again. I plan to take full advantage of the technology improvements in ALL aspects of my car as I proceed!

 

It's your choice to go with 17 or 18 inch wheels, an LS swap and brake upgrades. But if you want to look factory fresh, Gatorbacks are it. There are no plans from Dunlop to release it's D40 in 245/50/16, so that whole part is pretty moot.


If the Gatorbacks get released with a modern compound, I wouldn't be surprised if they turn out to be the highest perf 245/50/16 tire available, considering how quickly manufacturers are dropping products in that size. If they keep the price reasonable - who knows - it may end up being the "go to" tire for our cars.

 

Chazman I don't disagree with you for authenticity and all the purists keeping the cars factory stock. Gatorbacks would be the way to go. As an original owner I used up the first set of factory tires. Maybe I put an additional set of GB on just the rear back then. Please remember that was in 1987! Even though I have EVERY receipt for EVERYTHING I have ever done to the car I would have go through my files. Not trying to impress here, but I have had the my car way before many Third Gener's were born.
Back to your point, if factory stock is the look then go with GB's if available. Please remember there is more to tires than rubber compounds. If Goodyear brings Gatorbacks back with improved compounds they still might not be up to the advances today in tire technology. Going to a plus 1 or plus 2 can make a huge difference in handling characteristics. Personally, I would still never go with a tire/wheel combination with LESS then a 40 series tire.
Again, not trying to impress here just the facts. In 47 years of driving with many
sports/muscle cars (the first time around) I have driven well over 1,000,000 miles. I enjoy driving, using rear for steering and throwing a car around in the corners. I like to feel when the rear is breaking away. I have driven many friends high performance and exotics in the last 10 years. I do not like the ride or feel of the 30-35 series tires.
This is my own opinion, I am sure many will disagree.... that is what make this site so great. Hoping I have not offended any of the purists trying to maintain the spirit of third gen's. I am very open minded to whatever anyone wants to do to their cars. The only exception I will state openly is when someone puts on a set of crazy 20" or larger wheels!
That's my story and I am sticking to it!