1985 Porsche 911 Carrera: Round and Black

This is a fairly rare size, of course. Most of the American-specification 911SCs and 911 Carrera 3.2s of the 1980s carry 16-inch wheels with 7.0-inch rims in the front and 8.0-inch rims in the back. A 225/50R-16 is the preferred size for rear tires, and you can still find a good selection of modern tires in this size from first-class tire manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the Turbo (and “Turbo Look”) variants of these 1980s 911s have 16-inch wheels with 9.0-inch rims meant to carry 245/45R-16s, and naturally the market isn’t very large for these tires. We found that Nexen made a tire in this size (a friend of ours at Honda put them on his 911 Carrera 3.2 and seems to like these Korean-made tires well enough), but we were hoping for something a little more high tech for the Black Plague than just “round and black.”

The Porsche forums have been noting the scarcity of Turbo-size rear tires for 1980s 911s in recent months. There were choices to be made if you chose an almost treadless R-compound tire from BF Goodrich, Hankook, Hoosier, Kuhmo, or Toyo, but nothing in a street tire. Then we discovered that the Fuzion ZRi came in the right size, and it turns out that the company has links to Bridgestone and indeed seems to incorporate past Bridgestone technology in its tires. Tire Rack seemed to evaluate this Z-rated summer performance tire very favorably. The trouble was, the only examples we could find being marketed on the Internet seemed to be leftovers in faraway Florida tire emporiums.

Then by a fluke we tried Automotion, a long-time specialist in Porsche parts and accessories with a large presence in Porsche specialist magazines. It has a nice thick catalog that you can download (Automotion will even mail it to you for free), and a few seconds work with the Web site located the set of Fuzion ZRis we needed and a $588.41 click of the mouse dispatched them to us by UPS. Of course, we’re a little afraid to read the sidewall code and find out exactly when the tires were manufactured, but among our options in the round and black department, we feel good about our purchase. The truth is, the Dunlop SP Sport D40 tires that we recall as original fitment for the 1986 Porsche 911 Turbo in the U.S. might have been great at the time, but perhaps not so high-tech in retrospect.

There are two lessons here. First, it will be a long time before you discover that parts for an old Porsche 911 are unavailable (New Old Stock, reproductions and junkyard pieces fill the gap), but tires might be another matter, because technology has changed so rapidly over the last 40 years (heck, the last 10 years). There are tire companies that specialize in tires of the distant past, but fitments for the Porsche 911 are not yet on their radar.

The second lesson is, the Porsche aftermarket is vast and healthy. In the old days, you had to find parts with late night phone calls to strangers in foreign lands, but now companies like Automotion make it as easy to own an old Porsche as it is to own an old Chevy.

Of course, sometimes you will have to settle for round and black.

Michael Jordan, Executive Editor, Edmunds.com