Dan,
This is a subject that I spent quite some time pondering. Here's what I can
tell you from my search, YMMV.
First, I'm assuming that you have stock steel disc rims. If you have wires
or Mags, you might have different choices.
Redlines: There are apparently three sources for red-lines. Michelin, Avon and
Commander. They are are 185/80-15 tires. The Michelins requires tubes, I don't
know about the others. Bottom line: Michelins are roughly $220 per corner.
That's a lot. The Avons were pricey too, and the Commanders were around $100
each, but they are only "s" speed rated. You can find dealers for these listed
in Hemmings.
Others: The 80 series tires are pretty much passe' if you're into driving.
However, the 185/80-15 tire was used quite a bit by British cars. Thus, there
are some equivalent tires available from any of the tire manufacturers. The
only problem that I saw was that a lot of the offerings in the "correct"
size are white-walls...too tacky IMHO for a TR6.
At any rate, I bought a set of Michelin XGT4 tires in the 215/70-15 size. These
tires work out to be less than 1% larger overall diameter than the original.
I have driven quite a bit on them already this year (over 1000 miles so far)
and they are pretty nice. I paid roughly $91 each installed. And if I have a
tire problem almost anywhere in the US, I can get one new tire from the any
local Michelin dealer. That's a plus for me, because I drive a lot of long-
distance runs with my car.
Now, I had a set of Pirelli P5 215VR70-15's on the Six last year, and those are
really cool, but they cost >$160 per tire. The ones I had were used, they
worked for a season, but I would not recommend used tires. It costs too much
to keep installing and balancing them.
I would stay away from the 205/70-15 or shorter profiles (like 60 series) unless
you don't care about how accurate your speedometer is. If you're into autox
you might want the 205/70 because they are roughly 2% smaller diameter. If you
have TR250 4 inch wires, this is the biggest tire that they recommend.
Whatever you decide, good luck.
rml
p.s. when you get the tires mounted, try to get them to use the MAG machine,
not the regular unit. If they have to use the regular machine, have them
mount from the inside of the rim, not the outside. If they try to mount the
"normal" way, they might bend your rims!!!!
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