Perkolator

I’ve finally got my project Delmont 88 going and it’s time for tires so the car can be driven on not dry rotted rubber. Needs new wheels because one is bent, so I found a set of old school 15” slot mags on CL to keep it period correct for now. Problem is before I order tires I dunno if the rear wheels are going to work out and I don’t have the car nearby to do any test fitting and I’m doing it blind.

Wheels are 15x7 front and 15x9.5 rear. Rears have some old 295/50-15s mounted on them currently. Tape measure shows around 3.5” backspacing and I’ve seen a lot of people’s wheels are around 4.5-5” backspacing...but then again 99% of what I’m seeing is not on a 67/68 Delta/Delmont 88.

I’m likely going with Cooper Cobras in a 275/60-15 rear and 235/70-15 front but concerned that rear tire might hit the fender (?) I just don’t want to get tires mounted and find out I can’t put the wheels on when I get over to the car next week

kevin_baldwin5

I have a 68 Delmont, and run the Cooper 275/60-r15's in the rear. I don't know what my back spacing is, but can check and let you know.

joe_padavano

You want a wheel with near zero offset. Wheel vendors list backspacing because it's an easy thing to measure, but it's somewhat of a worthless metric. Offset is the measurement of how much the wheel mounting surface is offset from the centerline of the tire. In your case, a 9.5" wide wheel with 3.5" of backspace has about an inch of negative offset, meaning the outer edge of the tire is an inch closer to the fender lip than it could be with zero offset. The photos are 15 x 8.5 wheels with 275/60-15 tires on the back of my 67 Delta. They fit well. These TTOs have about half an inch of negative offset (3.75" backspace on an 8.5" wheel). Unfortunately I couldn't get zero offset in the TTO wheels. I have no rubbing throughout the suspension travel. Yours will be half an inch closer to the fender lip at least. Though not installed when these photos were taken, I now have 235/70-15s on the front on 15 x 7 wheels with zero offset. No issues at all.

Perkolator

That’s exactly the type of setup I was looking for!

I knew that these wheels were “deep dished” to stick out a little further with their negative offset. Turns out the front wheels are a 14” not 15” so I guess it’ll look just like your setup, just a little wider. Sounds like there’s enough clearance based on the observations of your setup so I think I may just follow through.

There is a 2nd set of wheels I saw on CL today though that I have interest in also that could work better if I wanted to drive an hour to get them - some old Enkei ek90 wheels in 15x8-4.5”bs. Never seen an Enkei wheel on anything not Japanese but this style looks a lot like C4 Corvette wheels.