409 steel wheels- tubed or tubeless?

[MYTA21]

Hello,
Can anyone confirm if the original sttel 16 inch 409 wheels are designed for tubeless tyres?
Reason- when I bought my 409 4 years ago, it have radial tyres with tubes in. Since I change all the tyres with new Avon 185VR16's I have had a spate of blow outs/punctures, mainly on the rear wheels. This weekend I was able to pull up quickly an dthe on removal of the tube, found a fair amount of rubber dust in the tyre, plus abrasion marks. porous area on the tube. There was nothing penetrating though the tyre. Having had varioous other tyre places look at previous punctures with no comments, I was suprised when a realtively " back yard" tyre fitter siad he was not going to fit a tube back into the tyre. He duly refittyed the tyre, inflated it and It has stayed up so far.
I have to sat that the inside of the Avon tyre is fairly rough, thus movement of a tube would abrade it.
Any thoughts appreciated.
Thanks