I'm a 2nd gen guy, but I have a 3rd gen question. I have a set of IROC rims and tires (85-87 style). I believe the tires are original but not sure Bridgestone were an option on California cars. My uncle bought some from the Recycler I believe in 86 or 7 with tires on them for his 70 Z28 (I only found 2 of the original rims in his back yard), so the tires are nearly new (still have knobbies). I drove on the tires about 500 miles and there are no flat spots and they are still sticky. I did a SMALL burnout one time, then changed to original style Coker tires for the 70.

Question is: Did IROC's come with Bridestones? For SURE the tires are older than 1996, as that is when the 70 Camaro was parked in the garage and did not move since (until Dec 2020 when I got it). I want now to sell the rims and tires but am not sure 1. if Bridgestone could have been original and 2. how much it would be worth if they are. I see IROC rims without tires or with aftermarket tires are about $400 at the high end.

 

Here was the car with these rims and now with 2 original and 2 repops.

 

No, the originals would have been Goodyears. There should be a date code stamped into the tire (I'm guessing the back side, don't see it in your photos) that you can use to figure out the year of manufacture. If the tires are as old as you say, they are essentially garbage. $400 seems reasonable to list them at.

 

I may be wrong, but I don't think date coding was done that long ago. So, you may not find one. When I bought my GTA, it had Eagle GS-C tires. There was no date code on them, which from what I researched made them at least twenty years old. Maybe some manufacturers were dating their tires all along in some way. The DOT date code format was only required starting in 2000.

Anyway, the originals were definitely Goodyear.

 

As already stated, those tires are NOT original to Third-Gen F-Body Vehicles.

Also, the "Firestone" name would have been used for a Tire like that, in the 1980s.
The "Bridgestone" name grew to replace all the "Firestone" models after a series of Ford Explorer Tire explosion indecents in the mid-1990s.

If any of you guys look into this series of incidents...
Almost always were the Tires very under inflated (increasing Tire temperatures) making the Driver partially at fault for never inspecting Tire pressures!

This, Ladies and Gentlemen is where the INCREDIBLY ANNOYING Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems came from!
Stupid people that can't be bothered to inspect their own Tire pressures + a less than ideal Firestone Tire design +Lawyers + the US Federal Government =
Vehicles having manditory TPM-Systems!

 

The original factory exiting Irocs and Trans Am tires were indeed Goodyears. Eagle VR50/16, usually called Gatorbacks by everyone. They were a good tire - at that time. The Gatorbacks got replaced by the GS-C, which got replaced by the F1, which got replaced by the F1 D3. Now I don't think Goodyear even makes a 245/50/16 tire at all??

 

Goodyear does not. 245-50-16s aren't very common. BF Goodrich, Cooper, General, and a couple of other still make them. Kumho too, I think.

 

Firestone is still out there. OEM on a 2014 Cherokee that I had, but I don't think they've ever recovered from the Explorer failures. That company certainly had its share of disasters and it's surprising that it survived. The Explorer issues that you mentioned were huge news. In the 1970s, they had a disastrous launch of the Firestone 500 radial tires that were blamed for thousands of accidents (over 14 million recalled). Bridgestone bought Firestone (and paid a massive priced for it) in 1988 to buy a presence in the US and European markets; it was pretty much a regional Asian brand until then. Apparently when they bought Firestone, they discovered that the company's plants were largely outdated and in poor condition.

 

Impossible to be OEM third gen tires.

If no date code is found, they're 1995-2000.

People do buy parts for parked projects.

 

Sort of... Later cars got the ZR50s.

 

Thanks for the good info guys. SInce they aren't worth much, I'll keep them for MY parked project, a 71 camaro. It needs wheels too.