Thank you all for your thoughts on some of the options, like Stefano I was very pleased with the performance of the Vredesteins I put on my 410 and they would have been the tyre of choice except that they seem to have shot up in price quite a bit since they were introduced in the 16 inch size.
Thoughts then turned to Michelin which after all was the first radial Bristol's fitted and with most of the vintage tyre suppliers are quite a cost effective option, then I remembered Blockley had introduced a new range of V rated radial Tyres though since I last looked at their site the prices have gone up a bit which might be because of the re design?
Their pre war tyres and to some extent their post war crossplys have a very pronounced block tread and while they seem highly rated on pre war cars their post war crossply's attracted some adverse comments from Octane magazine when fitted to an R Type Bentley, looking at their site the radials have a very different tread design and at £169+Vat are about £14 more than the Michelin so that was putting them in second place.
Vredesteins were coming out at around £240 each inclusive of Vat, though one of the vintage suppliers was offering a significant discount on eBay at £129 each including Vat!
Another internet supplier had them at £154 but these prices were kicked into touch when I came across an on line retailer called Jungle Tyres, they have the Vredestein Classic Sprint 185r16 at £73.90 each including Vat!
I actually phoned to check this wasn't a mistake, it wasn't so while I was not intending to purchase tyres yet 5 are now on their way to West Wales which means we are going to have to work a lot harder on the project.
Jungle Tyres offer a fitting service through associates but that puts the price up a bit but I chose the delivery only option which was an extra £15.
It will be interesting to see how they perform on the 401, my 403 is fitted with 175r16 Michelin's but it is so long since I last used that car I can't remember how they compared with the Vredestein's on the 410.
There does seem to be some quite good deals out there on tyres but I had not expected to make such a saving on Vintage tyres or to be buying so quickly after posting the question but I was afraid the price might go up!
Regards,
Geoff.
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