Could have been worse... I expected that they would use radium to make the tires glow...

Can guarantee you'd find these tyres in RGB on a clapped out Civic had they become the norm.

If they could have made operable versions of these I feel they would have sold well in the 90s.

As a teenager in the 60's, I saw a car drive by at night with the blue glowing tires. Amazing!

My dad told a story of how, during WW2 his dad had difficulty getting tires because rationing. But one time he got some tires that wore well, were made of some synthetic rubber, and were completely useless if there was one drop of rainwater on the roads.I wonder if these were the same material described here.

"because people are idiots and will buy anything" is a common refrain in some of Simon's channels.

I just watched a 12 minutes of content telling me how terrible these tires where, i’ve never heard about them before, and I *still* want them.

I do believe this idea was ahead of its time. This definitely has an air of ghetto chic about it. Every rapper would have glowing tires on his ride nowadays.

As a dedicated high school gear head in the early 1960s I remember these well. They were featured in a Hotrod magazine story, but as a feature for car shows not street cars.

Being a petrol head and a motoring enthusiast, I'm quite shocked I've never heard of these before. Amazing video!

I saw the golden sahara up close in a body shop outside Chicago when it was being restored before going to a private museum in Chicago in 2019. It was massive, astounding, and gorgeous. The thousands of radio knobs did look funny.

Goodyear had another project for making regular vulcanized tires with different coloring agents They didn't sell well, except to gangs who would use them to make colored skid-marks to claim their territory. Another project replacing the carbon black in the tire with quartz particles for more wear resistance, silica is piezoelectric and the tires tended to shoot lightning bolts.

In the 1950’s my Dad said wide white wall tires were the cat’s meow! He said that if you couldn’t afford the real thing, you could just buy wide whitewall inserts that just went over black wall tires. Until the end of his life, 2004, he couldn’t understand that people would have perfectly good whitewalls reversed to the black side. Not to mention that the formerly tire-wide whitewall had been reduced to a 1” white stripe that 99% of the population didn’t want anyway. How tastes change over the course of just a few decades. I miss you, Dad.

This is maybe the most 1960s invention Simon has ever covered outside of ludicrous Cold War weaponry

This is a great video. I had a friend who, in the late 60s built a battery operated car. He took an old Lincoln, I forget which model, and loaded it with 12 volt car batteries, an electric motor, electric windows and door locks, the works. It worked fine until he went to the store one day and forgot to shut off the main power switch. When he came out nothing worked. He had to have it towed home. He was already on probation for melting a garbage can with a heat ray that blew so many transformers that half of Baltimore was blacked out for a day. After the car fiasco and graduation from high school he moved out west somewhere. I wonder whatever became of him, or his car. He was NOT Elon Musk.

I love how the script spends the first four minutes treating the subject of people wanting colored, glowing, and custom 'for my mood/outfit' tires as ludicrous. Yet we live in a world with glowing LEDs that make a variety of our products act in the same way, and we can even change the colors on the fly according to our mood. And of course cars with glowing LED lights under them have been a thing for years. This is even highlighted at the end of the episode.

If you really want to make light up tires. Paint you tires in a UV reactive paint and shine a UV(blacklight) light source on to them. You can even get UV paints/inks that are invisible in normal light but glow under UV. I see a lot of people do this in the Christmas parade every year and the effect looks really cool. KIM: the way this is done in the Christmas parade involves mounting a UV led on the end of a rod that protrudes out of the wheel well by about 18 inches(50cm). Although this works fine in a parade. This will not work for a car driving down the road at high speed and around traffic.

WHY am I just learning about the Golden Sahara 2 ???? I don’t live under a rock and I’ve loved cars my entire life. Single yoke steering in 1965 is absolutely astounding!! Here we are 2022 and Tesla is just starting to bring back yoke steering

The moment you mentioned the tires were formed at 250 (guessing F, since it is the 1960s US) there was no way they would ever survive road conditions. Asphalt streets can reach 150F, combined with friction, deformation heating, brake and engine heat, even if they don't 'melt' they would definitely get hot enough that I would expect them to be way too soft to actually perform well.

fascinating, I originally thought the tyres were made to glow by mixing in a radioactive substance and zinc sulfide.

I was expecting that the “danger” would end up being some radionuclide embedded in the tyres to energise the glow. In many ways what they actually devised was far more hazardous.

This video solved a weird childhood mystery for me! I always wondered if colored tires really existed because I swear I remember seeing them when I was a kid. But it was in the early 90's, though. I lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas at the time and there was this old car place in the area. I think it was a place where they sold and restored old cars. Looking it up online now, I think it could've been a place called Barret's in Lewisville. I could swear I remember seeing fluorescent colored tires hanging on the fence and on some cars. They were all different colors, like pink, blue, orange, and green. I also think I remember seeing something like a pink Cadillac with the tailfins, with matching pink tires. At the time, I was only about 5 or 6 years old, so I didn't know any better and I thought maybe cars from the 50's and 60's might have actually have had colored tires. I thought that place was so cool. But looking back now, I'm wondering if those tires even really existed, or if it's just a false memory. There have been studies done where researchers have shown that they can get people to have memories of things from their childhood, that didn't really happen. (That would make a great video topic, btw.) I was wondering if this video was going to say that colored tires were a real thing and now that I know they weren't, I realize the tires I saw years ago, had to have been painted. (If they were even real at all and not just a figment of my imagination, that is.)

Back in 2020 at the Chicago Auto Show, there was a car there with this kind of tires, and there was modern RGB LED's illuminating the tires

You got me with the statement "brightly colored death traps". Very good Simon.

Very nice video! Though you got it wrong, saying Jim Skonzakis built the Golden Sahara II. He actually bought GS I from George Barris, and did some revamping on it, such as having Illinois customizer, Bob Metz, add the double fins on the car. The part about it being radio controlled, starting, steering, accelerating, is entirely true. Amazing for the very early 60's. It was also featured on "To Tell the Truth", as well as the "Cinderfella" movie, if I remember.

"A way to compensate for anatomical shortcomings" - love it!

This is an example of a company creating a product that met the needs of the company instead of the needs of the customers.

The Golden Sahara II: I'm surprised no one has tried to manufacture & sell Kit versions of it! A beautiful rolling work of art!

Reminds me of those coloured smoking tires I saw on top gear many years ago

Never knew about this in automobile tires. The general idea lives on in light up roller skate wheels where the demands on the "tire" are quite minimal compared to an auto.

Aw, now I want glowing tyres (Ones that won't kill me)

I was hoping 'that time' was a recent one this time because these things did look cool. Then the reality of them you explained clicked and I got bummed. Enjoyed this episode though, Simon! Thanks!

As soon as he said "at his home in Ohio" my heart dropped. People are big on duct tape and big "I'm gonna (fill in the blank) one day" stories here. Glad they fixed it. Up.

Its so interesting how cars become a part of a person's legacy, like the Shelby Cobra, Paul Walker's Skyline, James Dean's "Little Devil", etc. Theyre almost a means to live forever in memoriam.

nice video and thanks for making it. I cant help but point out a mistake of mentioning 68KG tire weight and it showing 68 KM. Keep up the good work

How do you make videos faster than I can watch em…….. impressive, I love your work, across the board of all your channels. I really appreciate the work your team puts in, Thanks, keep up the good work I’m a superfan and keep rolling those channels out, we love them all.

I actually love the idea. I miss the optimism of American companies lol

When it comes to tyres.....Function NOT fashion is the key!

Back in the day if you were too cheap for whitewall tires you could get Porta-Walls. These were rubber rings that would install on the outer surface of the tire. They were held on by deflating the tire slightly, pushing the ring under the outer rim of the well and then reinflating the tire. Later on, one company, maybe even several, had the idea to make colored Porta-Walls. You could get them in multiple different colors, and they were safer! But the tire was still black around the outer perimeter.

6:16 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 The tyres weighing 68 Kilometers?! That's bloody heavy! I know it's a typo but the thought of something weighing so much that it leaves its own catagory of measurement and uses another is hillarious. I find that funny just like how something can take so long to wait for that you have to start measuring it in distance (i.e. lightyears) 🤣

I believe that Firestone marketed a nylon tire in the sixties. They would flat spot when you parked overnight and were horrible in cold weather.

I do believe this happened during Ralph Kramden's very brief tenure on the Good Year board of directors.

Fun Fact: Mobile telephones for cars were available in the U.S. since the late 1940s. There were limited frequencies, so they were rare and expensive, but they did exist for about a decade by the time the "Golden Sahara II" was built. I'm going to conclude that the phone in it was fake for cost reasons.

I cant even stand rotating my tires every 10k miles. Absolutely no way i would change them more often to match my wife's attire.

As a teenager I saw these at a tire dealer near Chicago when I looked at them there was a cord providing the power to the tires I thought it was just a gimmick but seeing them glow was cool.

i had Grey tires on my Mountian bike once. grip was questionable at best. so did not do it again. and people do change the phone cases and hair and nails. so good ides just much too early. Molding it as a side wall no structural that would work

What a sad statement for Goodyear Tires. Goodyear, with this most notable exception has always been the leader and innovator in safe, durable tires for all manor of vehicles, a leader in quality control and research and development. For them to compromise those standards for just a marketing whim, in my mind is unthinkable and a breech of public trust. Thank you for this eye opener.

Seeing all this footage of George Barris Golden Sahara II. A whole video on Barris would be amazing. His custom car career along eith countless tv/movies cars would.make for a great video!

Never heard of these before. Thanks for researching this for us

With modern advances I think this could make a comeback... if my tires glowed maybe i would actually leave the house

Today with LEDs I am surprised this has not been tried again

Hello Simon, I lost you in the KZfaq algorithm for a long time. I'm so happy we found each other again. I'll never ignore 1(one) more of your videos so KZfaq never separate us again.

i remember reading about this in my dad's car magazines. i was about ten years old. nothing ever came of it

We still got the colored smoke that smells like lilac when you do a burn out tires.

Something not mentioned is that the light-up tires were also programmed to flash along with the turn signals in Goodyear's prototype testbeds, which went alongside Goodyear's attempts to eke out what little benefit they could out of said tires. Another thing not mentioned was that although the US knew these were becoming failures, they hyped it up to their Soviet rivals, making the Soviets a bit jealous that America could afford to let citizens customize their cars to such a degree. That being said, today these wouldn't be anything surprising on cars. It'd just be people trying to emulate the TRON glow effect or as part of a "pimped out" ride. In fact, there's a stupidly-lifted truck in my area with LED rims and a LED disc behind each brake that gives almost a TRON-like effect, spoiled only by the ghetto lift and excess chrome underneath reflecting it everywhere.

'Who's got any ideas for new tyres!?' 'How about sexy, glowing tyres!?' 'FK YEAH! Best idea I've heard ALL YEAR! Simpletons gonna buy these good!'

The idea of having several sets in order to match the wife's colours is a hilarious though, utterly impractical and frankly a terrible thought today, but still hilarious... :P

Awesome! I was doing some research on this few months ago. Who better else to talk about it than Simon!

In the 70s I worked at Mohawk Rubber (just behind Goodyear) and I heard of them but didn't understand the application because we also made various colored rubber for Patch Rubber Co. I now understand the difference between the two very different compounds and their uses. PS I was one of the industrial electricians there for 4.5yrs before they shut down on Nov. 22, 1978.

A grand subject Simon. I never knew Goodyear was that progressive. Thanks for the research. Stellar presentation Sir.

In the late 70's one company made outstanding snow tires, and made them only in blue.

I bet if they did it now I bet it would be super popular.

Those 64KM tires gotta be pretty big too :o These freedom unit conversions get crazier and crazier all the time :D /s

Wife: Change the tires dear, I'm wearing my blue dress tonight. Husband: The bulbs have all blown. Wife: Well then change them. Husband: I can't. We spent all our money on a rainbow of tires.

I worked for Goodyear for many years when I took my questions to the old-timers about these tires they told me they were specifically designed for show cars never to see the open road and they were basically clear tires with different colored lightbulbs inside obviously it didn’t takeoff in the show car industry and that was the end of it.

I still find old white tyres really elegant. They had that aspect mostly because that's the natural colour of rubber.

Thanks for mentioning Golden Sahara, it's still influencing custom car builds today.

RGB lights in the rims is a thing I see a lot. Having the tires glow as well would be awesome.

Nowadays we have LEDs to put on tire valves to create colorful rings. So I guess their marketing was on point. People do want this.

Hmmm 😀 So Tron style features IS a thing after all! Not entirely the work of Hollywood or science fiction 😍 If I actually saw a vehicle with them, I'd be mesmorised!

"a way to compensate for anatomical shortcomings". I laughed a little to hard at that!

I got to see the restored car at said Geneva Motorshow! While impractical, it was still a very cool sight to behold!

How much corporate time and energy did that project consume? (And what did the responsible executives consume to make them think it was a good idea in the first place?) If nothing else, the weight should have killed the concept. Unsprung weight (wheels, tyres and suspension components) causes forces that have to be overcome, and keeping it down is a key to achieving decent ride and handling qualities.

1:15 - Chapter 1 - The dream 3:15 - Chapter 2 - The reality 7:10 - Chapter 3 - The golden sahara 10:40 - Chapter 4 - Wrap up

We now have door handle lights, rotor/drum lights, wheel well lights, door projector lights, heartshaped led taillights(not the old beetle ones) and tires that can make a colorful burnout.

Those new airless tires that Michelin is developing are going to have a lot of place for LEDs...

6:17 - Simon, did you not realize that KM means kilometers not kilograms? It should say “68 kg” not “68 km”. This is weight, not distance.

There have been glowing tires before, but only when they are on fire...

That yoke driving stick is BALLER as shit. It also controls the brakes and gas. I want one right now, not for the 90+% of people that already cannot drive of course, but I need it.

Now here in the states you see color lights in the rims . Super distracting at night on the highways . Love the content .

This would probably fly off the shelves today. Put colour changing LEDs in there,go to Tiktok, profit.

Actual glowing tyres are probably a non-starter, but surely coloured tyres would be possible?

I live in Akron and my granddad worked as an exec GTR HQ. I've been through every plant every tunnel that you can imagine. And I actually know where some of those tires are right now.

Thank you for all the great videos

Somebody tried to make similar tires molded out of a single piece of material, without any reinforcing steel belts. Turns out they would get hot and then grow to an enormous size due to the centrifugal forces. Not good.

This would actually look good on certain cars in my opinion

Love your videos, Simon. Keep up the fantastic work!

Interesting story... I only have one problem with this video: When you mentioned the weight of the tyres whoever did the text overlay abbreviated kilogram incorrectly. KG is the abbreviated version of kilogram while KM is the abbreviation for kilometre.

They weighed 64km? And how much kg could they last?

There was some cool car stuff back then that definitely made sense, but lets face it a mass majority seems to be nonsense 😂

I think you could come close to the effect using fiber optic strands illuminating a wide white wall. Of course that will not illuminate the tread or the inside sidewall, but it would be striking, it it did not strike you... See persistence of vision displays for more details.

But you can drive along major uk motorways and have giant TV advertising screens along the way distracting motorists, but that's OK for some reason. Great vid as always 😁👍

Great video, but you got one thing wrong. We might actually see something like this again once airless tires take off. Because these tires already have holes in them integral to their design, there should be a relatively easy way to make them glow

If you've ever seen a modern lifted compensator pickup, you are thinking they weren't that far off

Thanks for the great content as always Facts Boy!👍 Still love Brain Blaze more though, 😎BLAZE BOYZ FOREVER!😎

Awesome bit of history I never knew of. Thought only glowing tires could be found at Neutral Drop.

They need to reintroduce that today. Due to the bad taste and whims of the Instagram generation I think they would sell like gangbusters now.

Wait, if you had transparent tires you could just use colored LED to change their colors. Why hasn't anyone brought back the clear tires? We could work it out, we have better material science now and the more electric cars there are the cleaner the road will be. It'd only be for wankers but it makes more sense than the stupid hydraulics some people have.

Hehe..I have rock lights, neon underglow lights, and rim lights on my jeep for show when going to parades or car meets..I use the rock lights when going on trails..it does catch alot of attention too something I like but also don't like at the same time

What I appreciate is the cool retro mid century styling.