Chains Cast Off?

U.S. motorists, skidding, churning, and bogging down in one of the snowiest winters on record, last week heard gripping news. At long last there has apparently been developed an honest-to-goodness nonskid tire.

A group of amateur inventors in Washington, Pa. announced that they had finally found the right adhesive combination. Their new tire, which works by friction, seems to give better traction than snow tires based on a gripping action. The tire material, a mixture of rubber and abrasives, feels gritty, like fine sandpaper. Designed for year-round use, it works equally well on snow and ice in winter and on wet, slippery pavements in summer.

Demonstrating their tires last week, the inventors drove up & down icy streets, stopped halfway up a steep, icy hill and got off again from a standing start--without slipping or sliding.

The inventors are Clarence and Lonnie Gapen, who run a paint & wallpaper business in Morgantown, W. Va. They worked on their tire formula for six years, recently perfected it with the help of the Andy Brothers Tire Shop in Washington. The abrasive material (a sawdust mixture) is mixed with recapping camelback (uncured rubber compound) under pressure, then applied to a tire by the usual molding process. The Gapen brothers claim that their tires will outlast ordinary ones. They have driven some of their recaps 9,500 miles.

The Gapen abrasive has not yet been tried in new tires. Some tire men who have examined the Gapen tires are enthusiastic. Even the skeptical are ready to concede that the Gapens may have found the solution that tire men have been seeking for a quarter-century.

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