In recent times the "specialist" tyre suppliers advise that owners of Vintage, Edwardian and Veteran cars should avoid the use of Beaded Edge (Clincher) tyres for anything other than mild use, or perhaps just for standing the car on.  And then recommend that for using the cars the later well base wheels and tyres should be fitted. This will be because none of these specialists can supply Blockley beaded edge / Clincher tyres and tubes, because we will not supply through them. Blockley supplies our Blockley tyres and tubes direct to the end user or garages / workshops. Many of these Wholesaler specialists also have their own tyre brands, designed by themselves, which is why they no doubt come up with this advice - these people are self trained salesmen with no engineering background, and the tyres they get made abundantly reflect this !

At Blockley we disagree with the advice these so called experts give.  The Blockley range of beaded edge tyres are nothing short of the best beaded edge tyres ever produced. Any car fitted with beaded edge (often referred to as Clincher in the USA) in period can now revert back to the correct tyre fitments, and use them with total confidence, as many have now done, including ourselves.

Blockley Tyre Co. embarked on the production of a superlative range of beaded edge / Clincher tyres only because of the dire situation of what was on offer from all the "Old car" tyre wholesalers. Because we use beaded edge / Clincher type tyres on cars ourselves, we needed something reliable and of decent quality compared to what these self styled experts were offering, because there was nothing for sale that we would want to put on any cars of our own.

After considerable research, coupled with our experience with this period of cars, and over a ten year development programme, we got to the bottom of why the situation was as it was, and produced our first size, which after thorough testing showed it to be a truly fantastic product.  All of our tooling, including the moulds, are newly built from scratch to our designs (which is the case with any Blockley Tyre size we make ie we are uiterested in using worn out tooling or moulds) and to our researched specifications to ensure an absolutely no compromise product, which cannot be surpassed! And unlike every single other outfit selling beaded edge tyres, Blockley produces a bespoke correctly fitting individual correctly sized thick butyl inner tube for every tyre size, whereas elsewhere there seem to be too few tube sizes with many tyre sizes written on them! But when a beaded edge tube has a brand name like "Michelin" written on it, people just assume it must be good and correctly dimensioned, even although this one tube will have many quite diverse sizes written on it, which is not how things were done, for very  good reason. Blockley not only makes a larger range of beaded edge tubes on a "one tube for one tyre" basis, but these tubes can also be used on other very similar dimensioned sizes of straight sided and beadede edge sizes correctly. And in addition, unlike other tubes, Blockley tubes are made from the best material that exists (butyl) yet to original period thicknesses, and do not leak.

The Blockley Beaded Edge / Clincher tyres are constructed with robust sidewalls and correct taller dimensions as the tyres were made in period, and all this combined with carefully designed period looking tread patterns designed in house, make for a truly wholesome product. Owners of the cars can now achieve truly terrific mileages along with excellent levels of grip, as one would expect from a Blockley product.  And Blockley beaded edge tyres all have the correct period diameters -  unlike many other brands available - smaller diameters being a result of cheaper manufacture, or just being ignorant of how things were. 

If your car has been updated to later well base wheels, you could now revert back to Beaded Edge / Clincher tyres with the confidence of all the advantages of lighter steering and a far better looking product, as was the intention of the vehicle manufacturers when they built the vehicles. And if you already have the beaded edge wheels you save the trouble of having new incorrect later type wheels made up. If you are reverting back to beaded edge, at least at the present time there are excellent wheel rims produced to original specifications, colled rolled and with the correct section width, as far too many rims made latterly are far too thin and cut the tyre beads. Feel free to contact us for advice on anything beaded edge related, for tyres, tubes or wheel ims / wheels.

It is interesting to note that not so long ago Michelin produced a huge range of Beaded Edge tyres . They had so much trouble and such an avalanche of complaints that Michelin finally solved the problem by axing  production and ceasing selling them, rather than being able to rectify the problems. But Michelin still carried on with their incorrectly sized tubes which are unfortunately sold to this day, rather than stop supplying these as well! There is more to making a good beaded tyre than meets the eye, as even these large companies have found out, and this shows why Blockley Tyre Company exists. Apart from beaded edge / clincher type tyres we also produce other cross ply, straight sided, radial and even millimetric sizes for cars into the 1980's. So when these salesmen tell you that brand is everything, and Dunlop, Michelin and Pirelli invented tyres and radials and so on, remember that was a long time ago and irrelevant. Britain invented cricket, football, bobsleighing and so on, but that doesn't mean the UK are the best at these sports today either!

And remember that because Blockley sell our products direct to the end user (and through some carefully selected outlets) all our tyres cost no more than anything else available, and the Blockleys are often considerably less cost because there is no "middle man tax" added. Interestingly since our Blockley beaded edge range have become available the Classic tyre wholesalers have slashed their prices and give discounts on top without even asking, as well as now offering their inner tubes free with the tyres. Plus there is a lot of subsidising of UK prices going on, when you compare the lower prices in the UK compared with what Coker Tire charges in the USA! Why do you think this is happening all of a sudden? But this doesn't change the situation that the Blockley tyres are the best tyres and perfect in every way, and because we sell direct without the involvement of these middle men, who have had it very good for so long,  we can sell a far superior product at a lower price to the end user, and ultimately it is only the end user that we are making our tyres for. So even with these shenanigans, their products are still no different to why Blockley needed to get to making a well researched range of wholesome beaded edge tyres.