Subject:
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Re: History of wheel and tire designs
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 30 Mar 2001 01:32:51 GMT
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Viewed:
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657 times
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"David Lewis" <dlewis@seanet.com> writes:
> Can anyone (who didn't have a twenty-five year dark age) point me to info or
> give me a quick history of Lego wheels and tires? The wheels I remember
> from childhood (late sixties, early seventies) had a short brass colored
> axle that was inserted into one of four holes in a 2x4 brick what had a
> clear plate on the bottom, and some inner workings to hold the wheel secure.
> The tires were thick grey rubber and had no tread, but had (I think) grooves
> on the sidewalls that went around the circumference of the tire.
>
> When did the sets move to the plastic axle on a plate or brick that snaps
> into a hole in the wheel (I realize there's still some variation today)?
> Were there intermediate designs? I've seen wheels like the old style, but
> with black rubber tires with "tread". When did those come into use? How
> well did these older wheels and grey tires hold up? If I bought some today,
> is there any possibility that the grey tires are in decent shape?
Well my childhood and early LEGO years was the mid-late 70's and
early-mid 80's. During that time the wheels you remember were already
gone, but the ones that replaced them were nearly the same. The 2x4
bricks were black (I think the ones you had were white), and the tires
were black. The tires changed shape a couple of times: in the early
70's they were just like the grey ones but black in color. Later,
they took on a more realistic shape, and used a more pliable rubber.
At some point in the 80s (I think), they were replaced again with the
treaded tires you describe, which I think you can still find today in
the basic sets (though using a different kind of wheel/hub
arrangement, of course). The old tires got really brittle - I don't
have any grey ones, but I still have some of the black ones that were
the same type, and they're very stiff and hard to get on/off the hubs.
The hubs in those days were red, generally, with a diameter the same
as the diagonal of a 2x2 brick, and had 4 studs on them. Larger
wheels had 8 studs in a "+" pattern. Also, there were "wagon wheel"
versions of both with a single stud in the middle and spokes leading
out to the rim. See Family for an example of the large
ones. When the electric set came out, it included red hubs with a
Technic axle hole, and two white 8x axles. It also included a
"caterpillar" tread that would span two of these wheels spaced several
studs apart. I still have this, though my motor is burned out.
In later years, large diameter tires with the same hub size came out.
Eight of these can be seen in Mobile Rocket Transport
(black tires on black hubs).
Also during my childhood years there was a smaller kind of wheel/tire
in use which consisted of a 2x2 black brick with a metal axle attached
to the bottom of it and small 1x1 red hubs permanently affixed. Most
of the vehicles of the early Legoland era (pre-minifig) used these. A
version with double tires (really one tire that was ridged to look
like the pair of tires seen on trucks) was also available. There was
also a "landing gear" style in grey (I think) with a 2x2 plate that
had little "arms" that would hold a red wheel below the plate. That
used the same kind of tire. Later, these were replaced with 2x2
plates with axles attached to the bottom, and the tires got tread.
The new style came out in only the last couple of years, during my
most recent Little Dark Age. I like it a lot though - the larger ones
interface with Technic beams, and the smaller ones with propellers.
--Bill.
--
William R Ward hermit@bayview.com http://www.bayview.com/~hermit/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."-Groucho Marx
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: History of wheel and tire designs
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| (...) My early Lego years were just about the same time. My earliest wheels are just like you describe (smooth black tires, red hubs w/metal pin, black 2x4 brick with holes). I still have these tires, and they aren't brittle at all. None have ever (...) (24 years ago, 30-Mar-01, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | History of wheel and tire designs
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| Can anyone (who didn't have a twenty-five year dark age) point me to info or give me a quick history of Lego wheels and tires? The wheels I remember from childhood (late sixties, early seventies) had a short brass colored axle that was inserted into (...) (24 years ago, 29-Mar-01, to lugnet.general)
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