Update by Tim Suddard to the
Shelby GT350 project car
Dec 2, 2011
There are some wheel styles that simply look right on a classic muscle car. The Torq-Thrust fits that bill.
There's a lot going on in this photo, but you'll have to stay tuned for the rest of the story.
Every car needs to have tires and wheels, and our Shelby GT 350 was no different.
Every car needs to have tires and wheels, and our Shelby GT 350 was no different. In 1967, there were three different wheel options for the Shelby GT 350. The standard setup was 15x6-in. Kelsey Hayes, plain black steel wheels covered by 1965 five-spoke Thunderbird hubcaps with a Shelby emblem on them. According to SAAC (Shelby American Automobile Club), this is the way that our car was originally equipped from the factory.
While we have some of these original wheels, we had no intention of using them. In fact, we put them on our Edsel project car. Early in 1967 you could also get a 14-in. European 10-spoke wheel on your Shelby. While kind of neat looking, we don’t want 14” wheels. Later in 1967, Kelsey Hayes also made a cool five spoke 15x7” wheel called the Magstar. We plan on getting some of these wheels eventually, but we still wanted a set of wheels for track events. In the meantime, we found an American Racing licensed, Torq-Thrust styled wheel on eBay in a 15x7-in. size. We were in a hurry, and the “Buy It Now” price from Custom Wheels Market was $600 for the set with center caps and lugs. They seem to be well made and we will give them a try.
We asked the experts at Cobra Automotive and Orlando Mustang what they recommended for tire size on this car. They both told us that a 225/60R15 tire would work well on all four corners of the car, with the option of using slightly larger 235/60R15 tires at the rear. In long distance rallying, carrying two different size spares is a challenge, so we opted to keep all four of our tires and wheels the same size.
For tires, we chose Kumho Ecsta ASX all season tires. We have had very, very good experiences with every Kumho tire we have used, from the cheapest in their line to their all out competition tires. Real sticky tires in a 225/60R15 size are a tough to find, and we wanted a good all around tire to run on the street anyway. For more serious track work, we will opt for a stickier Kumho later on.
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