As a teenage in the mid 80s, my friend had a 73 electra 2 door and it did in fact have a small switch on the underside of the dash pad, just to the right of the instruments and was labelled max trac. By this time the car was already older and neither one of us had heard of it before and didn't know how it worked. While driving we tried it several times but couldn't detect that anything changed. Now that you've explained how it worked, it could have been working just fine, we just might not have been spinning by 10 percent. In any case thanks for another great video!!
@@ronblack7870 I'm working on an inflatable car. it'll be in the trunk right were a spare tire would be at. Just pull it out blow it up and cruise on home while calling the tow truck..
I could just imagine some ignorant kid playing around inside some car and activating that crap when the cars in the family garage or driveway.... Ooof.... I don't wanna think about something I mighta done like that as a kid... My butt would still be sore 60 some years later...
Years ago I read about a guy that got a 1969 COPO Chevrolet Camaro which the buyer had every possible option put on it. COPO vehicles were specially ordered through a few dealerships like Yenko Chevrolet and were generally used for drag racing so they were available with the 427 big block engines. He got his with this option and converted it over to spray water on his tires so he could do a burn out before racing on the street. Burnouts are done seconds before a race to be able to heat the tires up and making them sticky and to get better traction. At a drag strip you would have a buddy put water in front of the tires. But when you are racing on the street stoplight to stoplight it's more practical to just push a button. pretty clever.
@@TurboactiveNo idea if the story is true, checking all the options seems weird, but should be easy to convert the system to spraying water. Instead of aerosol cans, you'd have a nozzle in place, hooked up to hoses that go to a small water tank.
Yea it's sad that all they do now is stick a bigger screen in it and figure out a way to make things cheaper. I will say new cars are way safer than older cars. I watched a new traverse get t boned. It rolled all the way over and into it side. Never broke a window. Barely had a dent. Just mostly scratched up.
@@nb7466 I've noticed that newer cars can do that. My wife backed her Camary into my son's truck as I watched. After a loud whack sound, the car pulled away literally undamaged. (The truck was damaged)
That and common sense. They started the 60’s with torque tubes, rear air-cooled engines, swing-Axels and semi-trailing arms, aluminum v8’s, and turbochargers. They ended the decade with front engine, rear drive, naturally-aspirated iron blocks driving live axels. The other stuff was way too much, way too soon.
Nice video. A book I read years ago touched on this. Chevy was a money machine back then. In an attempt to get his arms around it, John DeLorean, who worked for GM at the time, was tasked with making the company more efficient. Companies that are making huge amounts of money frequently don't focus on efficiency and reducing waste. He spent months touring the country, studying the waste in the system. One of the results was that there were many options, like Liquid Tire Chain, headlight washers, and fold down rear seats, that weren't big sellers but that required manufacturing space to produce, labor to build, distribution, storage, etc. The expense of offering these options were out of line with the profit they produced. In the 1970 GM models, they were discontinued so production resources could focus on more popular options. My two cents. Keep up the great vids!
Liquid tire chain was popular for maybe 5 or 10 years, late 60's thru early 70's. It's a bit like the spray windshield deicer. Part of GM's problem was the cost of that system plug GM's huge markup over picking up the cans at your auto parts store... for a product that was mostly good for getting up your driveway.
That might have sold better as a dealer add-on. There were certainly people who would have paid dearly for adjustable pedals, but some wouldn't think of them when ordering a new car. If a customer complained about the pedals during a test drive, it would be a perfect time to hand out a brochure on installing adjustable ones. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that that's the way "hydroboost" brakes are often sold.
The '05-'08 Dodge Magnum had it as an option also. It was nice that you could move the pedals closer while maintaining distance from the steering wheel.
@@ajwilson605 tons of modern vehicles have them.... just odd to see them back that far.... but ford had it for years and years on most of there stuff, gm on trucks, etc
I personally chose 2 bundles of roofing shingles. Whatever color happened to be on clearance. Roofing used to be dirt cheap. I'm between Buffalo and Rochester NY where 6 ft of snow might pop up over a weekend.
@@marcberm the good old days. I'm glad I got out of the business years ago. As a side note I recently found an Amish saw mill a half hr from where I live (western NY). 4x4 x 12 ft posts are 5 bucks, 2 x 4 s are 3 bucks. Basically half price compared to crooked wood at depot and Lowes.
Great info Adam! I know the Liquid tire chain option well as my grandmother had this on her 69 Caprice..I can remember her emptying a complete can of the spray trying to get out a couple inches of snow! Of course she did'nt follow instructions..she justed gunned the engine! Lol!
@@matthewcaughey8898 I remember my neighbor with his 68 Buick tuna boat on a snowy Sunday afternoon in the early 70s my dad was relaxing in his lazy boy in the front living room watching the game on TV. I just brought in those Ellios Pizza slices smoldering hot right out of the oven when the neighbors rear hubcap came flying thru our huge bow window. The hubcap cut my dads scalp but good. He shot up out of that chair like a rocket ship. The hubcap ricocheted off the dinning room hallway wall and landed right at my feet. I never seen my old man turn that red not even when I bent the bumper on his brand new Blazer... I mean he was bleeding all over the living room carpeting his chair while it looked like he was doing an Indian war dance. It was a mess. He ruined towels in the bathroom making my mom go ballistic.... It was quite something. The neighbor didn't even know what the hell he did he went tooling on the down to the corner market for more beer the only place around that sold beer on Sundays. My dad let him know about it about midnight he threw the hubcap thru the neighbors front window after he just got done putting plywood over our bow window. My dads boss actually came to see the carnage and not because he didn't believe it himself nobody believed it but my dads boss. He actually helped us put the new window in when spring came.
I remember Liquid Tire Chain from articles in magazines such as Popular Science. It seemed like it might be maybe kinda useful on glare ice but you can almost always get going on ice. Braking is the real problem on ice. It's deep snow that will pack the tire's treads full and completely stop progress. Real tire chains will throw the snow out. Spray on goop can't do that. I seem to remember that there were aftermarket kits to install the LTC system on almost any car. Probably in the JC Whitney catalog, maybe next to the Fire Injectors and Overhaul In A Can.
I've also read and I've been told that the liquid Tire chain made an excellent softener of the tire tread for drag racing and if used in that way the tires would wear out very quickly and there were lots of $$$ claims of premature tire wear,
Used too use product called rubber restore. On slicks for asphalt super mods. Tended to dry out a little in storage(plus we were on shoestring) soak tires, rotating , for about an hour. Sticky as hell after.
Liquid Tire Chain Can you hear me laughing GM? They promoted it to the wrong market. Wilco has the right idea. Instead of snow-covered roads, they should have promoted to those 1/4 mile long roads. Even the dealer-installed accessories, they gave instructions for Novas, Chevelles, and Fullsize cars, not for Camaros. I bought a used set and some NOS aerosol cans 20 years ago, complete except for the vacuum fitting on the motor. When I install it I'm going to inert the system by plugging the fitting to stop the mystery vacuum leak.
@@briansharp4388pretty sure thats the same stuff that has been used for many years in the printing and copying industry. When rubber pickup and transport rollers wear down they get slick and don't pick up sheets of paper as well. This restorer (often sold as "rubber rejuvenator") would clean and slightly soften the roller surface and allow for a few thousand more cycles before the rollers would finally have to be replaced.
Great picture of the I-190/I-290 split in Worcester, MA. I-190 goes north to Fitchburg while I-290 continues east and connects to I-495. Awesome to see a local connection to your videos. Thanks, Adam!
I immediately went back to take another look at this pic too. It looks to be Pre-1983 before I-190 opened, very likely the blizzard of’78. The ramp does look like the 190 ramp at Grendale.
i worked for the power company my whole life and we would have to put chains on our trucks when a big snow storm was coming. in the early 2000s they had automatic tire chains installed on our trucks and they worked quite effectively. the chains were on discs that worked off the air system and after flipping the switch on the dash the disc would lower and 5 small 12 inch pieces of chain would flail under the rear tires and also contact the road. the disc with the chains are powered by contact with the moving tire. when not needed the small units fold back up under the truck. it worked really well and we would use it often as needed.
Ive mentioned on here previously, My Uncle Bill was at the top during the late sixties into the 70s. Every electric gadget from AC Delco went through him. He was lead at age 25 in the early sixties, and now at age 87, he naps alot.
@@RareClassicCars actually he considered it a job and although I am quite aware all of the role he played in the history all the way up through OBD1 systems, he always downplayed it
In the early 80's I had a friend who was a complete Camaro nut. He had every conceivable option for a 69 Camaro. The only option he lacked was what he called " liquid traction dispenser " he had a case of the product but not the mechanism to dispense it. This was all in Texas so mostly a mute point... but he found a guy in ft worth that had this option on a 69 Camaro..he tried to buy the car from him just for the traction device but the owner knew he was trying to " hustle" him...to my my knowledge he never got his sacred option... I had never heard of this feature before or since until your video. Congrats on reveling an obscure option most people have never heard of! 👏 crazy stuff GM was up to!
Reminds me of cars with spare tires that you had to inflate yourself (what was essentially Fix-A-Flat). The cans would rot and make a mess in the cars because of the infrequent use of them. I seem to remember there was an option for early 80's Camaro's (among other cars, of course) when they changed to the third gen style.
I was so lost as to why there was a GM car with two cans bolted to the rear wheel wells. though that was some Jerry rigged stuff to bad the car was severely damage breaking or benting some of the parts of the system. this car had a very hard end looks like is fell off a canyon road.
Liquid Tire Chain sounds like a good option in areas like The South where it doesn't snow often and when it does, it's a little bit or mostly ice, but not in areas where you would have snow tires.
Yeah, it makes me wonder if they missed a step marketing it, focusing on the Midwest and the Northeast I suspect. You wouldn't have had the dealers fighting you either in the South (or the Southwest where they get ice from time to time).
My uncles 1969 z28 camero has liquid tire chain. He said it was an extremely rare option to have. His car has a bunch of really rare options, like 4 wheel disc brakes, and vigilite fiber optics to show if you have a light out.
My friend had a 69 impala convertible that had that option, it never worked when he owned it but everything was there. Pontiac had a few odd options in 69 too; first was Power-Flo ventilation, it added two cowl mounted fans to blow air out the outer dash vents on non AC cars (in those years the heater fans could only blow air at your feet or defog the windows. Another oddity was Instant-Aire, it was a vacuum driven air pump that was stored in the trunk with the spare but to operate it you mounted it on a bracket on a running engine. I t produced about 32 psi as long as you didn’t have a high duration, low vacuum camshaft. The third oddity was actually an old option that was in its final year of use, Reverb rear speaker. Basically the wire that fed the rear speaker went through a coil with a ton of wire on a coil which delayed slightly the signal to the rear speaker. It made it sound like you were in an echo chamber, neat with dome music but awful news or other dialogue programs, it had an/off switch. The advent of stereo radios and Stereo 8 track players doomed it.
"Power-Flow" actually became the norm on a lot of cars in the 1980s when they found that it was cheaper to leave the extra vents in on the few cars that were still ordered without AC. As for reverb, it's one of the modes on my 1995 Kenwood receiver, but I can hear a version of it whenever I turn on the kitchen and living room TVs at the same time, since the decoders have different chipsets.
I had a 67 Buick which had reverb. IIRC it was a box under the dash with a switch. AM/FM radio and an electric antenna on the right rear fender. It also had a 'speed alert', a knob and pointer in the speedometer you set, and when you got close to the setting it began buzzing- gently at first and louder after you went past where it was set.
I remember the MaxTrac TV commercial (early 70s). It first showed a car without MaxTrac attempting to drive on an ice rink, spinning out of control. Then a Riviera with MaxTrac was shown driving on the ice completely poised -- like it was on dry pavement. Great commercial and memory from the past.
This product is fascinating, I can see that people probably didn't follow the instructions properly so it was doomed from the start!!! I had never heard of the liquid tire inflator before!!! Thanks for sharing another interesting video!!! 👍👍
A friend of mine had a '74 Electra with Max Trac. Not only do I distinctly remember the control on the dash, I read about it in his owners manual. It stated that if the engine seemed to "miss", don't worry about it since this is how it was supposed to be.
Interesting. I'd like to get hold of one or two of these cars with weirdo options - airbags from the early '70s, that MaxTrac, a diesel in a GP Pontiac to name a few.
My buddy also had a red 74 electra that had the option. Adam's video mentioned it was only available from 71 to 73 so I stated 73 in another comment that it was a 73, as I wasn't completely sure but thought it was a 74. This was in the mid 80s up here in ND so it definitely intrigued us but really could never tell if it was working or not.
I only learned of the Liquid Tire Chain system a couple of years ago. You're right, an interesting idea, but it used an unneccessarily complex system to dispense it. To say nothing of the pollution potential. "Better living through chemistry." Indeed. And Max Track -- much more interesting and truly innovative, IMHO. Too bad it couldn't last long. I understand that one of the main reasons was that it interfered with smog control functionality.
I remember this! I was in high school then and studied all the free car brochures I'd pick up. Of course, living in the Houston area they weren't gonna sell many of that option here. Great video! I'd like to see you do a video on that windshield by FoMoCo in the seventies that had a gold layer in the glass, thereby electrically heating the whole glass better than any blown defroster.
@@DanEBoyd I just read that it had a couple of problems. It would delaminate and discolor. But even more of an issue... radar detectors would not work, and cell phones got poor reception through it. I guess it was like a Faraday Cage. 😀
the other major flop in my opinion was the rust prevention body sealer they would squirt inside the body panels either done at the factory, the dealer or aftermarket shop like ziebart. i had my 1983 chevy pickup done when i bought it and it ended up clogging and sealing over the body drains. the doors on the thing started rotting after a few years and i didn't realize what had happened until i went to a body shop and the guy showed me how the doors were filled with water. so we took a screwdriver and poked out the door drains and the water came running out but the damage had been done. but the real reason i went to the bodyshop was that gm had been using this silver paint that would start peeling off after a relatively short time. it would come off in big flakes and sometimes i would be driving down the road and the flakes would be flying off. other that that it was a good chevy truck.
Yes you can call me crazy but one winter day day here in WV, many years ago, I had a chance to use the liquid tire chain on an older gentleman's car that was stuck in the hard packed, icy snow. To our amazement, IT WORKED! I guess the conditions were right for it.
In late 1969, Lincoln offered the Kelsey Hayes developed "Sure-Track" anti skid system, which only operated on the rear wheels, as $200.00 option. * It became standard on the '74 Mark IV. In 1971 Imperial offered a Bendix developed, anti skid option, called "Sure-Brake" adding $351.50 to the cost of car. Sure Brake was a three channel system, using separate speed sensors for each front wheel, and a single one for both rear wheels which pulsed the brakes 4 times per second. As a kid, I saved all new car brochures and remember Liquid Tire Chain being listed, but in Dallas, I never saw it on a car. We had winters icy roads, but never very deep snow until the winter of '71-'72. That's when I first saw snow chains and snow tires. Great video👍🏾
I remember that snow. I think we got about a foot at our house in Lubbock. My dad helped me build my first snowman and I didn't see another until we moved north.
This option is shown on the commercial for the 1969 Caprice available on UA-cam. It is quite a unique commercial to see a vehicle portrayed in a snowy environment.
Fun fact in Model T days you took a piece of chain and spiraled it around the tire rim and wheel spokes. When demand for something quicker and easier arose Henry Ford's wife cam up with CLOTH TIRE WRAPS and they worked amazingly well, especially on ice.
The good old days of snow tires with studs and rwd cars you just stood on it and spun your tires to gain traction. Hearing that sometimes minutes of vvrrrrrrrhhh spinning you knew someone was stuck
Liquid Tire Chain worked very well . I carried a can all the time . We had an ice storm and there was an 18 wheeler stuck in a small dip near our dealer . I walked out , sprayed his drive tires with Liquid Tire Chain and he pulled out of the icy dip without any problems . The truck driver promptly walked to our parts room and bought several cans . Unfortunately it is no longer available .
So cool - I'm relatively good on auto obscurities, but never heard of LTC installations! Max track of course was widely promoted (youtube videos available too!) so not really obscure.
My dad always had GM company cars, usually Pontiac Safari wagons in the late 60's and through the mid 70's. As for snow tires, my dad was a firm believer in the old Firestone Town & Country's with that super aggressive tread. They were really quite amazing! I seem to recall them putting cans of it in by the spare on those cars and I have a couple stashed away somewhere.
After the 1971 Riviera, Buick planned to make MaxTrac available across it's vehicle lineup. The problem was any system that reduced engine power by interrupting the ignition voltage made the powertrain difficult to certify for vehicle emissions compliance - and emissions certification became stricter every year during the 1970's. By 1973 Buick knew MaxTrac had to go. It was difficult enough trying to meet the 1974 emissions standards without an onboard computer playing pattycake with the car's ignition system everytime wheel slip was detected!
Indeed, when the ignition cut out raw gas would continue to flow through the engine. It definitely would have destroyed the cat converter in '75 and later years.
Not sure if it was a factory, dealer or home made install, but my grandfather told me that his 1940’s Buick had a little lever he could pull to drop sand in front of the rear tires.
I'd love to see a video on the models that came as either hardtop sedans or as pillared sedans. I know GM's '71-'76 B-body's were offered this way, but I suspect that the C-bodies were not, with the Fleetwood being the only one with a B-pillar. I wonder how many people chose the pillared versions of the B-bodies; were they mostly fleet buyers concerned about safety, or did customers walk into dealers looking only for non-hardtops? Safety concerns, squeaks and leaks were all potential problems with the hardtops.
Despite that feeling, cars have never been so durable. 1960s/70s/80s cars would often show structural rot at 10 years old, and engines making 300.000km was unheard of unless you drove a Volvo or Mercedes.
my dad had it in his '71&73 Riviera GS. It barely made a difference. but, it was a crude example of traction control. wouldn't you rather have a Buick!!
Never heard of liquid tire chain, until you mentioned it here. The "max trac" accessory seems like it might cause more trouble than good, especially if and when it malfunctioned and messed up the ignition...
Chevy owners were/are perhaps less likely to be able to stay in place, and therefore would be more likely to have to drive their new car through the snow and slush.
At one time I owned a 1969 Caprice (Sport edition, Z24 option) that had the liquid tire chain setup.The product was all used up ,but the empty cans were still in the trunk. When you pressed the red button on the dash (actually under the wiper/washer switch), it made a hissing sound similar to a tire being deflated.I called it my 'turbo boost',lol. That car had a lot of cool options: power windows and locks,bucket seats with the basket handle shifter,AM/FM 8-track,hideaway headlights and fender mounted front turn indicators. I call it "the one that got away". I should have kept that one!
Radial tires were probably the stake in the heart of that system. Bias ply tires were hard rubber and pretty much suicide on icy roads. Radials have softer sidewalls and allow more rubber on the road.. better than snow tires. In snow areas "all season" tires are sold with a more aggressive tread pattern. The cut the power thingy is annoying as f. My Corvette has a silly anti-spin system that will kill the engine... nothing to do with snow. I still have tire chains which wrapped around the tire... like tank treads. Last used them like that when stuck in mud... got out. My winter drivers always have awd or 4wd these days... the real cure.
Adam, again, thank you for educating me. I never heard or saw anything about this before. Wish my dad born '37 was still around so I could ask him if he remembers this.
GM had several key pieces of technology that would become commonplace in the 1990s in 1970s vehicles, with electronic fuel injection, airbags, (primitive) anti-lock brakes, and traction control. It even had the (infamous) V8-6-4 system that would return to GM vehicles only 15 years ago as "displacement on demand".
I was raised in a GM family...for the most part...Dad didn't stray far and fit the buy a Chevy and upgrade through the brands as he became more established marketing strategy. GM had plenty of engineering talent, but the execution of final product was suspect and in typical GM fashion, the product was perfected and cancelled.....Chevy Corvair...by the second generation, you had a refined small car which was not supported and cancelled a few years later. GM regressed by investing more in the older tech rear drive cars. The Vega...looks promising on paper. I read that during the development process, the test drivers had to follow a strict protocol of topping off coolant and oil levels, something a normal buyer didn't do. Verification testing passed...validation testing by the end user? Led to engine failures. In the 70s, GM had some innovations like you mentioned. I would add the clamshell tailgate on the full size wagons and the downsized B and C bodies of 1977..the few times that GM hit the market with a perfect product. The X-Cars...much has been written about this but they did pave the way for the successful A cars which probably overstayed their welcome until 1996. We were shopping for a newer station wagon during the summer of 96 and I was surprised to compare the older, boxier A car to a more modern Ford Taurus and how different they were and yet manufactured in the same year. The Fiero...again...underdeveloped for production....perfected and cancelled...The second gen had much promise for only exists in a prototype. And the Aztec...a great concept, limited by execution by trying to adapt it to the existing minivan platform.. And my personal favorite since I've owned two...the Chevy Volt. Really a tour de force of engineering...muddled by marketing and how to explain it...those who got it are satisfied owners and the car has a cult following...this is reinforced by the fact that many automotive enthusiast UA-cam channels use the Volt as a daily driver. I am using mine for an extended commute and can average 109 MPG with a full charge at home. GM should have kept the Voltec drivetrain and delayed the Bolt introduction until the issues with the BEV batteries were sorted out.
If GM would change their policy to "when we think we perfected it, wait a year working on it still before we release it" because 90% of the problems are just small shit that could be fixed if anyone in the company just drove the cars for a year.
I bought a couple of cans of "liquid chain" in the '90s, made by some company that claimed the spray was being used on buses in Norway. It was very expensive, but I am not sure it worked. My '86 Grand Marquis was still all over the place on slippery winter roads.
Max Trac was available through the 1974 model year. I was told that the vehicle would not pass emissions standards with a misfiring engine. It added about $90.00 to the price of models so equipped.
The liquid tire chain was also hard on the radial tires GM was testing in 1970 so along with the removal of many options in 1970 it was more helpful on bias tires.
Very interesting video! But, honestly surprised there isn't more comments about how chemical concoctions like this are probably quite dangerous to be exposed to. It literally says "POISON" right on the can. The makers knew....
When I lived in Maine, in the winter we would put a big bin of sand in the trunk along with a small "Army Shovel," I guess that would be Non-Liquid Tire Chain??? lol
Great video, I had never heard of this system. Liquid Tire Chain seems like one of those things that is probably better that it never succeeded, being a bunch of extra waste and pollution that could have only come out of the excess of the 60s. Sure is interesting though.
I built this kit on my 4th gen with an old trailblazer washer bottle and VHT or Tracbite. 1.7 60's on junk tires. They were 17" on old Corvette ZR1/ SS wheels, so not a lot of sidewall. I had less than $2k in the whole car running 13.1-13.6 at Numidia and daily driving it in the snow ironically. That took weight in the hatch to do.
I live in Chicago. This was a good idea on paper....In the real world it was a joke...The only thing that worked well was steel chains or steel - studded tires, both of which were banned because they tore up the roads!
You are corect I live in the western Burbs in Illinois to use chains or studs you have to be a disabled US Military Veteran or Rural Postal letter carrier
Yes, I live in the Chicago area. After the snow finally melted in the spring, there would be two freshly milled grooves in each lane from the studded snow tires. When they went to a full ban, I grabbed a Vice Grip pliers and pulled out the studs. I was OK with that.
My father had a "69 Impala Sport Coupe with this option back in the late "70s...He said it was a 350 4 bbl with a 4 speed.He used it as his "winter beater" and would actually use the liquid tire chain in the winter.....He could still get the cans of "juice" at a dealership at the time...He said the tire chain stuff worked ok as he always used snow tire anyways......And a rear wheel drive car with snow tires goes like a tank,I don't care what people say otherwise....He remembers that he removed the brackets that held the canisters to the rear wheel wells when he junked the car out along with the button on the dash plus a few feet of vacuum hose.He's still got a few cans of the tire juice too.👍👍
I still have 10 or 12 cans of that stuff. I worked on Max Track at local Buick dealer. System was always broken and some child would switch it on. Bingo car goes to 3 shops then me at the dealer. Turn switch off .3 of an hour flat rate.
It may have been a dud for Honda, but Nissan put it in some huge successes. The 300ZXTT, Silvia, and GTR got 4ws. Also, the Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 got 4ws. However those had very limited sales.
thank you ..i have never heard of either of these things... Chrysler tried 4 wheel disk brakes on the Imperial in 1974 ..and some kind of mechanical anti lock system that year
I worked at a Ford dealership in the parts department back in the '70's I remember using the Liquid Chain stuff. Used it on a icy road and as I recall it wasn't bad. But I also recall it made a helluva mess !
What a flop. My father's solution to increase traction in snow was the same solution that countless thousands of car and truck drivers used. Get a couple of tire tubes and fill them with 50 to 100 pounds of sand and tie off the ends, then place them in the car trunk as close to the wheel wells as possible. Same in a pickup truck or just shovel snow into the truck bed until you had added several hundred pounds of weight.
My dad used to put a tractor wheel weight in the trunk. Basically a 90 pound disk of metal. We had a bad accident, and the weight went out the side of the car, and rolled about a quarter of a mile out into a field. It would have been lethal, if it had gone out the front.
@@robertheinkel6225 Yeah. The sand filled tubes didn't move around....at all. I understand what Adam was explaining. Basically that this spray on traction " medium " was for emergency stuck situations, not daily snow driving. Still, the sand tubes usually kept one from being in such a situation......that and driving more slowly and cautiously. Something a lot of people won't do. It's usually those " i can drive fast as I want on the snow " idiots who wind up stuck anyway.
I've crossed some of the nastiest mountain passes in the western 48 and lived in the Alaskan arctic long enough to know absolutely nothing beats an older 4wd Chevy pickup with studded+siped winter tires, just throw a few bags of sand or salt in the back and drive according to the road conditions. Don't lock up your wheels when trying to stop, don't spin them when you're trying to go -- you'll always make it to your destination.
As a teenage in the mid 80s, my friend had a 73 electra 2 door and it did in fact have a small switch on the underside of the dash pad, just to the right of the instruments and was labelled max trac. By this time the car was already older and neither one of us had heard of it before and didn't know how it worked.
While driving we tried it several times but couldn't detect that anything changed. Now that you've explained how it worked, it could have been working just fine, we just might not have been spinning by 10 percent.
In any case thanks for another great video!!
The car probably ran out of the liquid tire chain, years before your friend got the car
@@SqueezeMongerwrong stuff . max trac cut the ignition not spray tire chain
@@ronblack7870 I'm working on an inflatable car. it'll be in the trunk right were a spare tire would be at. Just pull it out blow it up and cruise on home while calling the tow truck..
I could just imagine some ignorant kid playing around inside some car and activating that crap when the cars in the family garage or driveway.... Ooof.... I don't wanna think about something I mighta done like that as a kid... My butt would still be sore 60 some years later...
Years ago I read about a guy that got a 1969 COPO Chevrolet Camaro which the buyer had every possible option put on it. COPO vehicles were specially ordered through a few dealerships like Yenko Chevrolet and were generally used for drag racing so they were available with the 427 big block engines. He got his with this option and converted it over to spray water on his tires so he could do a burn out before racing on the street. Burnouts are done seconds before a race to be able to heat the tires up and making them sticky and to get better traction. At a drag strip you would have a buddy put water in front of the tires. But when you are racing on the street stoplight to stoplight it's more practical to just push a button. pretty clever.
i think you need slicks to get the rubber compound that works with burnouts . regular tires may not produce the desired effect.
OK boomer
Sounds like BS. How's it work without the aerosol can?
Doesnt make sense to order a COPO car that is specifically made to be stripped of options and then add all the options. Your story is a bit tall
@@TurboactiveNo idea if the story is true, checking all the options seems weird, but should be easy to convert the system to spraying water. Instead of aerosol cans, you'd have a nozzle in place, hooked up to hoses that go to a small water tank.
GM was very technically brave in the 1960s and 1970s. I think the beancounters stepped in and put an end to much of it. Sorry, Adam :-)
I agree, the bean counters always stuck there noses where it did not belong haha
Roger Smith
Yea it's sad that all they do now is stick a bigger screen in it and figure out a way to make things cheaper. I will say new cars are way safer than older cars. I watched a new traverse get t boned. It rolled all the way over and into it side. Never broke a window. Barely had a dent. Just mostly scratched up.
@@nb7466 I've noticed that newer cars can do that. My wife backed her Camary into my son's truck as I watched. After a loud whack sound, the car pulled away literally undamaged. (The truck was damaged)
That and common sense. They started the 60’s with torque tubes, rear air-cooled engines, swing-Axels and semi-trailing arms, aluminum v8’s, and turbochargers. They ended the decade with front engine, rear drive, naturally-aspirated iron blocks driving live axels. The other stuff was way too much, way too soon.
Nice video. A book I read years ago touched on this. Chevy was a money machine back then. In an attempt to get his arms around it, John DeLorean, who worked for GM at the time, was tasked with making the company more efficient. Companies that are making huge amounts of money frequently don't focus on efficiency and reducing waste. He spent months touring the country, studying the waste in the system. One of the results was that there were many options, like Liquid Tire Chain, headlight washers, and fold down rear seats, that weren't big sellers but that required manufacturing space to produce, labor to build, distribution, storage, etc. The expense of offering these options were out of line with the profit they produced. In the 1970 GM models, they were discontinued so production resources could focus on more popular options. My two cents. Keep up the great vids!
I never heard of liquid tire chain before today. I really enjoy listening to you and the knowledge you have on the car industry.
Exactly, where on earth does this material come from? Good job Adam.
I still got a can of it.
It seems to me like the “fix a flat “ stuff that is the alternative to a real spare tire on some modern cars?
Same here. However, by the time this product was introduced, my parents had stopped buying GM cars.
Liquid tire chain was popular for maybe 5 or 10 years, late 60's thru early 70's. It's a bit like the spray windshield deicer. Part of GM's problem was the cost of that system plug GM's huge markup over picking up the cans at your auto parts store... for a product that was mostly good for getting up your driveway.
Another unique option with low take rates to explore: The adjustable pedals in the 1974-1976 full sized Pontiacs. (code 502-UPC WX7)
That might have sold better as a dealer add-on. There were certainly people who would have paid dearly for adjustable pedals, but some wouldn't think of them when ordering a new car. If a customer complained about the pedals during a test drive, it would be a perfect time to hand out a brochure on installing adjustable ones. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that that's the way "hydroboost" brakes are often sold.
Ford Taurus had that for awhile.
The '05-'08 Dodge Magnum had it as an option also. It was nice that you could move the pedals closer while maintaining distance from the steering wheel.
@@ajwilson605 tons of modern vehicles have them.... just odd to see them back that far.... but ford had it for years and years on most of there stuff, gm on trucks, etc
my 02 f150 has this
I drove with two 50 lb bags of play sand in the trunk for almost the entire time I had my '94 Firebird in the Northeast.
I Used the same setup in my 1985 Firebird in Pa!
That is a common practice 😊
I personally chose 2 bundles of roofing shingles. Whatever color happened to be on clearance. Roofing used to be dirt cheap. I'm between Buffalo and Rochester NY where 6 ft of snow might pop up over a weekend.
@@allenrusselljr Oh for the old days when building materials were less expensive than sand! 😂
@@marcberm the good old days. I'm glad I got out of the business years ago. As a side note I recently found an Amish saw mill a half hr from where I live (western NY). 4x4 x 12 ft posts are 5 bucks, 2 x 4 s are 3 bucks. Basically half price compared to crooked wood at depot and Lowes.
Great info Adam! I know the Liquid tire chain option well as my grandmother had this on her 69 Caprice..I can remember her emptying a complete can of the spray trying to get out a couple inches of snow! Of course she did'nt follow instructions..she justed gunned the engine! Lol!
The spray combined with studded snow tires was the best approach. The aggressive light truck tires could handle what the spray on chain couldn’t
@@matthewcaughey8898 I remember my neighbor with his 68 Buick tuna boat on a snowy Sunday afternoon in the early 70s my dad was relaxing in his lazy boy in the front living room watching the game on TV. I just brought in those Ellios Pizza slices smoldering hot right out of the oven when the neighbors rear hubcap came flying thru our huge bow window. The hubcap cut my dads scalp but good. He shot up out of that chair like a rocket ship. The hubcap ricocheted off the dinning room hallway wall and landed right at my feet. I never seen my old man turn that red not even when I bent the bumper on his brand new Blazer... I mean he was bleeding all over the living room carpeting his chair while it looked like he was doing an Indian war dance. It was a mess. He ruined towels in the bathroom making my mom go ballistic.... It was quite something. The neighbor didn't even know what the hell he did he went tooling on the down to the corner market for more beer the only place around that sold beer on Sundays. My dad let him know about it about midnight he threw the hubcap thru the neighbors front window after he just got done putting plywood over our bow window. My dads boss actually came to see the carnage and not because he didn't believe it himself nobody believed it but my dads boss. He actually helped us put the new window in when spring came.
@@thekingsilverado3266 That is a WILD story! If you have any others to share, I will certainly listen!
My 88 Hyundai Elantra had this option on it. It worked pretty well because I knew the wheel needed to spin. It helped me on more than one occasion.
I love this concept. Keep giving us these oddities that we may have forgotten or not even knew about. Excellent work sir!
I remember Liquid Tire Chain from articles in magazines such as Popular Science. It seemed like it might be maybe kinda useful on glare ice but you can almost always get going on ice. Braking is the real problem on ice. It's deep snow that will pack the tire's treads full and completely stop progress. Real tire chains will throw the snow out. Spray on goop can't do that.
I seem to remember that there were aftermarket kits to install the LTC system on almost any car. Probably in the JC Whitney catalog, maybe next to the Fire Injectors and Overhaul In A Can.
Ice can stop progress too.
I think that the the liquid tire chain was kinda like WD40. It would stop the snow from packing the tire treads therefore improving traction.
I've also read and I've been told that the liquid Tire chain made an excellent softener of the tire tread for drag racing and if used in that way the tires would wear out very quickly and there were lots of $$$ claims of premature tire wear,
Used too use product called rubber restore. On slicks for asphalt super mods. Tended to dry out a little in storage(plus we were on shoestring) soak tires, rotating , for about an hour. Sticky as hell after.
Liquid Tire Chain Can you hear me laughing GM? They promoted it to the wrong market. Wilco has the right idea. Instead of snow-covered roads, they should have promoted to those 1/4 mile long roads. Even the dealer-installed accessories, they gave instructions for Novas, Chevelles, and Fullsize cars, not for Camaros. I bought a used set and some NOS aerosol cans 20 years ago, complete except for the vacuum fitting on the motor. When I install it I'm going to inert the system by plugging the fitting to stop the mystery vacuum leak.
@@bfmcarparts Wonder if you could pump VHT through it? Traction compound on the go...
@@briansharp4388pretty sure thats the same stuff that has been used for many years in the printing and copying industry. When rubber pickup and transport rollers wear down they get slick and don't pick up sheets of paper as well. This restorer (often sold as "rubber rejuvenator") would clean and slightly soften the roller surface and allow for a few thousand more cycles before the rollers would finally have to be replaced.
Great picture of the I-190/I-290 split in Worcester, MA. I-190 goes north to Fitchburg while I-290 continues east and connects to I-495. Awesome to see a local connection to your videos. Thanks, Adam!
Needs some pics of the blizzard of 78 on the NYS thruway.
Snow piled like 20-30 feet deep.
It must have been like driving in a tunnel with no roof.
I immediately went back to take another look at this pic too. It looks to be Pre-1983 before I-190 opened, very likely the blizzard of’78. The ramp does look like the 190 ramp at Grendale.
I also recognized that immediately. I grew up in Princeton. So cool to see.
i worked for the power company my whole life and we would have to put chains on our trucks when a big snow storm was coming. in the early 2000s they had automatic tire chains installed on our trucks and they worked quite effectively. the chains were on discs that worked off the air system and after flipping the switch on the dash the disc would lower and 5 small 12 inch pieces of chain would flail under the rear tires and also contact the road. the disc with the chains are powered by contact with the moving tire. when not needed the small units fold back up under the truck. it worked really well and we would use it often as needed.
I've been behind trucks with those and saw them work, pretty neat.
they worked really and were always there when you would need them.@@bigredc222
Yes school business and oil trucks have them here in Connecticut.
Ive mentioned on here previously, My Uncle Bill was at the top during the late sixties into the 70s.
Every electric gadget from AC Delco went through him. He was lead at age 25 in the early sixties, and now at age 87, he naps alot.
Fun guy to talk to
@@RareClassicCars actually he considered it a job and although I am quite aware all of the role he played in the history all the way up through OBD1 systems, he always downplayed it
In the early 80's I had a friend who was a complete Camaro nut. He had every conceivable option for a 69 Camaro. The only option he lacked was what he called " liquid traction dispenser " he had a case of the product but not the mechanism to dispense it. This was all in Texas so mostly a mute point... but he found a guy in ft worth that had this option on a 69 Camaro..he tried to buy the car from him just for the traction device but the owner knew he was trying to " hustle" him...to my my knowledge he never got his sacred option... I had never heard of this feature before or since until your video. Congrats on reveling an obscure option most people have never heard of! 👏 crazy stuff GM was up to!
Reminds me of cars with spare tires that you had to inflate yourself (what was essentially Fix-A-Flat). The cans would rot and make a mess in the cars because of the infrequent use of them. I seem to remember there was an option for early 80's Camaro's (among other cars, of course) when they changed to the third gen style.
@@cujoedaman
How about the old Volkswagen that used air from the spare tyre to propel the windshield washer fluid.
"MOOT point"
Yes, you are correct...but I am auto correct!.. lol
I was so lost as to why there was a GM car with two cans bolted to the rear wheel wells. though that was some Jerry rigged stuff to bad the car was severely damage breaking or benting some of the parts of the system. this car had a very hard end looks like is fell off a canyon road.
Liquid Tire Chain sounds like a good option in areas like The South where it doesn't snow often and when it does, it's a little bit or mostly ice, but not in areas where you would have snow tires.
Yeah, it makes me wonder if they missed a step marketing it, focusing on the Midwest and the Northeast I suspect. You wouldn't have had the dealers fighting you either in the South (or the Southwest where they get ice from time to time).
You mean for people that have no business even being on the road with summer tires and are just an accident waiting to happen?
My uncles 1969 z28 camero has liquid tire chain. He said it was an extremely rare option to have. His car has a bunch of really rare options, like 4 wheel disc brakes, and vigilite fiber optics to show if you have a light out.
Wow I would LOVE to see that!
I just looked it up, option JL8 would get you Corvette four wheel disc brakes on your Camaro.
My friend had a 69 impala convertible that had that option, it never worked when he owned it but everything was there. Pontiac had a few odd options in 69 too; first was Power-Flo ventilation, it added two cowl mounted fans to blow air out the outer dash vents on non AC cars (in those years the heater fans could only blow air at your feet or defog the windows. Another oddity was Instant-Aire, it was a vacuum driven air pump that was stored in the trunk with the spare but to operate it you mounted it on a bracket on a running engine. I t produced about 32 psi as long as you didn’t have a high duration, low vacuum camshaft. The third oddity was actually an old option that was in its final year of use, Reverb rear speaker. Basically the wire that fed the rear speaker went through a coil with a ton of wire on a coil which delayed slightly the signal to the rear speaker. It made it sound like you were in an echo chamber, neat with dome music but awful news or other dialogue programs, it had an/off switch. The advent of stereo radios and Stereo 8 track players doomed it.
"Power-Flow" actually became the norm on a lot of cars in the 1980s when they found that it was cheaper to leave the extra vents in on the few cars that were still ordered without AC. As for reverb, it's one of the modes on my 1995 Kenwood receiver, but I can hear a version of it whenever I turn on the kitchen and living room TVs at the same time, since the decoders have different chipsets.
I had a 67 Buick which had reverb. IIRC it was a box under the dash with a switch. AM/FM radio and an electric antenna on the right rear fender. It also had a 'speed alert', a knob and pointer in the speedometer you set, and when you got close to the setting it began buzzing- gently at first and louder after you went past where it was set.
@@P_RO_ my sisters boyfriend's car had it and dropping acid and Hendricks were " the order of the day " .
I remember the MaxTrac TV commercial (early 70s). It first showed a car without MaxTrac attempting to drive on an ice rink, spinning out of control. Then a Riviera with MaxTrac was shown driving on the ice completely poised -- like it was on dry pavement. Great commercial and memory from the past.
This product is fascinating, I can see that people probably didn't follow the instructions properly so it was doomed from the start!!! I had never heard of the liquid tire inflator before!!! Thanks for sharing another interesting video!!! 👍👍
That was not a tire inflator. It was meant to make the tires more sticky on ice.
A friend of mine had a '74 Electra with Max Trac. Not only do I distinctly remember the control on the dash, I read about it in his owners manual. It stated that if the engine seemed to "miss", don't worry about it since this is how it was supposed to be.
Interesting. I'd like to get hold of one or two of these cars with weirdo options - airbags from the early '70s, that MaxTrac, a diesel in a GP Pontiac to name a few.
I’m sure the emissions from that would be a bit more than allowable. 😀
@@drippinglass Yep, bad for the catalytic converters, for sure.
My buddy also had a red 74 electra that had the option. Adam's video mentioned it was only available from 71 to 73 so I stated 73 in another comment that it was a 73, as I wasn't completely sure but thought it was a 74. This was in the mid 80s up here in ND so it definitely intrigued us but really could never tell if it was working or not.
I only learned of the Liquid Tire Chain system a couple of years ago. You're right, an interesting idea, but it used an unneccessarily complex system to dispense it. To say nothing of the pollution potential. "Better living through chemistry." Indeed. And Max Track -- much more interesting and truly innovative, IMHO. Too bad it couldn't last long. I understand that one of the main reasons was that it interfered with smog control functionality.
I remember this! I was in high school then and studied all the free car brochures I'd pick up. Of course, living in the Houston area they weren't gonna sell many of that option here. Great video! I'd like to see you do a video on that windshield by FoMoCo in the seventies that had a gold layer in the glass, thereby electrically heating the whole glass better than any blown defroster.
I remember in the late 90’s? Fords with pink windshields. I think that had something to do with the HVAC system as well. 😀
I remember seeing that on mostly later first generation Tauruses and Sables.
@@DanEBoyd Yeah. It was probably late 80’s. I drove truck from ‘89 to ‘94 and remember seeing the boxy Panthers with them as well.
@@drippinglass Yep, I think that's right. And maybe the early final generation of the Panther, immediately following the boxy ones in the early '90s.
@@DanEBoyd I just read that it had a couple of problems. It would delaminate and discolor. But even more of an issue... radar detectors would not work, and cell phones got poor reception through it. I guess it was like a Faraday Cage. 😀
This is a new piece of auto history for me. Fun to learn about these things!
the other major flop in my opinion was the rust prevention body sealer they would squirt inside the body panels either done at the factory, the dealer or aftermarket shop like ziebart. i had my 1983 chevy pickup done when i bought it and it ended up clogging and sealing over the body drains. the doors on the thing started rotting after a few years and i didn't realize what had happened until i went to a body shop and the guy showed me how the doors were filled with water. so we took a screwdriver and poked out the door drains and the water came running out but the damage had been done. but the real reason i went to the bodyshop was that gm had been using this silver paint that would start peeling off after a relatively short time. it would come off in big flakes and sometimes i would be driving down the road and the flakes would be flying off. other that that it was a good chevy truck.
Ziebart = FAIL.
In Europe we still use Waxoyl but of course we don't plug the drain holes
Ziebart got all over whatever was in the trunk
Yes you can call me crazy but one winter day day here in WV, many years ago, I had a chance to use the liquid tire chain on an older gentleman's car that was stuck in the hard packed, icy snow. To our amazement, IT WORKED! I guess the conditions were right for it.
Never heard of it. You learn something new every day! Thank you! 😀
In late 1969, Lincoln offered the Kelsey Hayes developed "Sure-Track" anti skid system, which only operated on the rear wheels, as $200.00 option. * It became standard on the '74 Mark IV.
In 1971 Imperial offered a Bendix developed, anti skid option, called "Sure-Brake" adding $351.50 to the cost of car.
Sure Brake was a three channel system, using separate speed sensors for each front wheel, and a single one for both rear wheels which pulsed the brakes 4 times per second.
As a kid, I saved all new car brochures and remember Liquid Tire Chain being listed, but in Dallas, I never saw it on a car. We had winters icy roads, but never very deep snow until the winter of '71-'72. That's when I first saw snow chains and snow tires. Great video👍🏾
I remember that snow. I think we got about a foot at our house in Lubbock. My dad helped me build my first snowman and I didn't see another until we moved north.
Seen this on a 69 camaro z-28 from the factory years ago and not many people knew what it was! Nice video.
Here in Canada we had the liquid tire chain option as early as 1964. It was option "V75 Traction Compound and Dispenser"
This option is shown on the commercial for the 1969 Caprice available on UA-cam. It is quite a unique commercial to see a vehicle portrayed in a snowy environment.
Thanks Adam. Please do more of the 'quirky' things that were tried. I cringe to think exactly what chemicals were being sprayed out.
Wow that Max Trac sounds just like enhanced traction control that GM started using in the late 90s.
GM had the best traction of all in the Corvair. Corvairs won't stop until the snow is deep enough that the floor of the car is plowing through it!
Just a cheap copy of a beetle
@@dodgeramsport01 And a Ram is a cheap copy of a real truck.
@@jthomas3773 I don't have a Ram
Fun fact in Model T days you took a piece of chain and spiraled it around the tire rim and wheel spokes. When demand for something quicker and easier arose Henry Ford's wife cam up with CLOTH TIRE WRAPS and they worked amazingly well, especially on ice.
Cat litter and shingle strips , my go to .
That would be especially important on the earlier models, which had one-wheel drive.
The good old days of snow tires with studs and rwd cars you just stood on it and spun your tires to gain traction. Hearing that sometimes minutes of vvrrrrrrrhhh spinning you knew someone was stuck
Liquid Tire Chain worked very well . I carried a can all the time . We had an ice storm and there was an 18 wheeler stuck in a small dip near our dealer . I walked out , sprayed his drive tires with Liquid Tire Chain and he pulled out of the icy dip without any problems . The truck driver promptly walked to our parts room and bought several cans . Unfortunately it is no longer available .
Wow....I never knew about these clever ideas....thanks for posting.
So cool - I'm relatively good on auto obscurities, but never heard of LTC installations! Max track of course was widely promoted (youtube videos available too!) so not really obscure.
Thank god this toxic sludge never became mainstream.
I never knew about either of these products before. Interesting trivia Adam.
Cheers 🇨🇦
Awesome. Ideal for spraying pimp juice when youre doing 'no prep' drag racing lol
I had no idea that traction control went back that far! Cool video.
I learn something old every day .
Fascinating. Never heard of liquid tire chain before...
My dad always had GM company cars, usually Pontiac Safari wagons in the late 60's and through the mid 70's. As for snow tires, my dad was a firm believer in the old Firestone Town & Country's with that super aggressive tread. They were really quite amazing! I seem to recall them putting cans of it in by the spare on those cars and I have a couple stashed away somewhere.
Didn't know about this. Interesting to see the things they tried. Up in Wisconsin we just threw a bunch of weight in the trunk during the winter.
My 1973 Olds Toronado with FWD never got stuck in the snow.
That 1000 pound, 455 c.i. engine block might have helped a LITTLE bit.🤣
Unfortunately you failed to mention perhaps the worst: The environmental impact of releasing liquid plastics all over the place
It's GM they don't care about the environment
After the 1971 Riviera, Buick planned to make MaxTrac available across it's vehicle lineup. The problem was any system that reduced engine power by interrupting the ignition voltage made the powertrain difficult to certify for vehicle emissions compliance - and emissions certification became stricter every year during the 1970's. By 1973 Buick knew MaxTrac had to go. It was difficult enough trying to meet the 1974 emissions standards without an onboard computer playing pattycake with the car's ignition system everytime wheel slip was detected!
Indeed, when the ignition cut out raw gas would continue to flow through the engine. It definitely would have destroyed the cat converter in '75 and later years.
Not sure if it was a factory, dealer or home made install, but my grandfather told me that his 1940’s Buick had a little lever he could pull to drop sand in front of the rear tires.
Great video Adam. Please do some more like this.
I'd love to see a video on the models that came as either hardtop sedans or as pillared sedans. I know GM's '71-'76 B-body's were offered this way, but I suspect that the C-bodies were not, with the Fleetwood being the only one with a B-pillar. I wonder how many people chose the pillared versions of the B-bodies; were they mostly fleet buyers concerned about safety, or did customers walk into dealers looking only for non-hardtops? Safety concerns, squeaks and leaks were all potential problems with the hardtops.
Cars just don’t feel they same these days. They feel more disposable. Great Video though!
Despite that feeling, cars have never been so durable. 1960s/70s/80s cars would often show structural rot at 10 years old, and engines making 300.000km was unheard of unless you drove a Volvo or Mercedes.
I would have checked the box for G80. The locking rear differential. One great option!!
my dad had it in his '71&73 Riviera GS. It barely made a difference. but, it was a crude example of traction control. wouldn't you rather have a Buick!!
“You go in snow, or General pays the tow!” I remember vividly putting tire chains on dad’s ‘61 Triumph. That car went like the devil through snow!
Than any other kind of car.
Wouldn't ya !
Very interesting video. That’s my Buick in the end photograph, was really pleased to see it in your video!
Awesome
Never heard of liquid tire chain, until you mentioned it here. The "max trac" accessory seems like it might cause more trouble than good, especially if and when it malfunctioned and messed up the ignition...
How would it do that? It's a normally open system!
Great video. Other ideas too, would be early anti skid brakes and those ford defrosting windshields
Interesting that GM chose Chevrolet to introduce the liquid tire chain option. You’d think they’d have offered it on a more upscale brand first.
Chevy owners were/are perhaps less likely to be able to stay in place, and therefore would be more likely to have to drive their new car through the snow and slush.
@@DanEBoyd hey, that's RACIST 🤣🤣🤣
@@wilsixone More age-ist. I was thinking of younger people when I typed that.
You think, if Cadillac really wanted it, GM would say"no"? Or BOP for that matter?
Well it is GM so go figure!
At one time I owned a 1969 Caprice (Sport edition, Z24 option) that had the liquid tire chain setup.The product was all used up ,but the empty cans were still in the trunk. When you pressed the red button on the dash (actually under the wiper/washer switch), it made a hissing sound similar to a tire being deflated.I called it my 'turbo boost',lol.
That car had a lot of cool options: power windows and locks,bucket seats with the basket handle shifter,AM/FM 8-track,hideaway headlights and fender mounted front turn indicators. I call it "the one that got away". I should have kept that one!
Radial tires were probably the stake in the heart of that system. Bias ply tires were hard rubber and pretty much suicide on icy roads. Radials have softer sidewalls and allow more rubber on the road.. better than snow tires. In snow areas "all season" tires are sold with a more aggressive tread pattern. The cut the power thingy is annoying as f. My Corvette has a silly anti-spin system that will kill the engine... nothing to do with snow. I still have tire chains which wrapped around the tire... like tank treads. Last used them like that when stuck in mud... got out. My winter drivers always have awd or 4wd these days... the real cure.
Adam, again, thank you for educating me. I never heard or saw anything about this before. Wish my dad born '37 was still around so I could ask him if he remembers this.
GM had several key pieces of technology that would become commonplace in the 1990s in 1970s vehicles, with electronic fuel injection, airbags, (primitive) anti-lock brakes, and traction control. It even had the (infamous) V8-6-4 system that would return to GM vehicles only 15 years ago as "displacement on demand".
Anti lock brakes could be ordered on the 1969 Lincoln Mark III.
I was raised in a GM family...for the most part...Dad didn't stray far and fit the buy a Chevy and upgrade through the brands as he became more established marketing strategy. GM had plenty of engineering talent, but the execution of final product was suspect and in typical GM fashion, the product was perfected and cancelled.....Chevy Corvair...by the second generation, you had a refined small car which was not supported and cancelled a few years later. GM regressed by investing more in the older tech rear drive cars.
The Vega...looks promising on paper. I read that during the development process, the test drivers had to follow a strict protocol of topping off coolant and oil levels, something a normal buyer didn't do. Verification testing passed...validation testing by the end user? Led to engine failures.
In the 70s, GM had some innovations like you mentioned. I would add the clamshell tailgate on the full size wagons and the downsized B and C bodies of 1977..the few times that GM hit the market with a perfect product.
The X-Cars...much has been written about this but they did pave the way for the successful A cars which probably overstayed their welcome until 1996. We were shopping for a newer station wagon during the summer of 96 and I was surprised to compare the older, boxier A car to a more modern Ford Taurus and how different they were and yet manufactured in the same year.
The Fiero...again...underdeveloped for production....perfected and cancelled...The second gen had much promise for only exists in a prototype. And the Aztec...a great concept, limited by execution by trying to adapt it to the existing minivan platform..
And my personal favorite since I've owned two...the Chevy Volt. Really a tour de force of engineering...muddled by marketing and how to explain it...those who got it are satisfied owners and the car has a cult following...this is reinforced by the fact that many automotive enthusiast UA-cam channels use the Volt as a daily driver. I am using mine for an extended commute and can average 109 MPG with a full charge at home. GM should have kept the Voltec drivetrain and delayed the Bolt introduction until the issues with the BEV batteries were sorted out.
If GM would change their policy to "when we think we perfected it, wait a year working on it still before we release it" because 90% of the problems are just small shit that could be fixed if anyone in the company just drove the cars for a year.
Good points. I also liked the Pontiac Solstice one of their best designs in decades.
Thanks for the video. This is an interesting option I had never heard of before.
Good info as just recently talked about this in a 69 Camaro came into the shop years ago.
I bought a couple of cans of "liquid chain" in the '90s, made by some company that claimed the spray was being used on buses in Norway. It was very expensive, but I am not sure it worked. My '86 Grand Marquis was still all over the place on slippery winter roads.
Max Trac was available through the 1974 model year. I was told that the vehicle would not pass emissions standards with a misfiring engine. It added about $90.00 to the price of models so equipped.
We're were they testing emissions in 74? And it only missed while in max Trac mode!
@@dodgeramsport01
I read it in a book on Buick.
@@dave1956 yes it only missed while in that mode, so it should have passed emissions in regular drive mode
Catalytic converters came in 75, and it's probably not a great idea to dump unburned gasoline into a cat...
@@mikanystrom7103
I never thought about that, but it makes perfect sense. No quicker way to render it ineffective.
Adam, you always produce such informative videos! I wonder why GM chose to offer Max Trac on Buicks instead of on Cadillacs.
The testing of a new option on the flagship car was dicey.
The liquid tire chain was also hard on the radial tires GM was testing in 1970 so along with the removal of many options in 1970 it was more helpful on bias tires.
Very interesting video! But, honestly surprised there isn't more comments about how chemical concoctions like this are probably quite dangerous to be exposed to. It literally says "POISON" right on the can. The makers knew....
When I lived in Maine, in the winter we would put a big bin of sand in the trunk along with a small "Army Shovel," I guess that would be Non-Liquid Tire Chain??? lol
What a hoot, never heard of it before. Wild stuff.
Well done article with a live person!
Lived in the great north all my life! Never heard of this! Interesting 🤔
Great video, I had never heard of this system. Liquid Tire Chain seems like one of those things that is probably better that it never succeeded, being a bunch of extra waste and pollution that could have only come out of the excess of the 60s. Sure is interesting though.
I loved the swivel seats of the 70s that GM had.
glad i stumbled on this. cracked me up! growing up alongside lake superior this is hilarious. i see it can be had on ebaay. just too funny. thanks.
I built this kit on my 4th gen with an old trailblazer washer bottle and VHT or Tracbite. 1.7 60's on junk tires. They were 17" on old Corvette ZR1/ SS wheels, so not a lot of sidewall. I had less than $2k in the whole car running 13.1-13.6 at Numidia and daily driving it in the snow ironically. That took weight in the hatch to do.
Adam, Is it any wonder Liquid Tire Chain flopped when K-tel Spray On Snow Tires® were available at a fraction of the cost? 😂
🤣🤣🤣
I'm here after reading about this on Facebook. Interesting idea though.i live in Canada. We get lots of snow and freezing rain.
You didn't explain how it worked. Did it soften the rubber? Was it a glue of some sort? Did it lessen tire life? Did it actually work?
I live in Chicago. This was a good idea on paper....In the real world it was a joke...The only thing that worked well was steel chains or steel - studded tires, both of which were banned because they tore up the roads!
You are corect I live in the western Burbs in Illinois to use chains or studs you have to be a disabled US Military Veteran or Rural Postal letter carrier
Yes, I live in the Chicago area. After the snow finally melted in the spring, there would be two freshly milled grooves in each lane from the studded snow tires. When they went to a full ban, I grabbed a Vice Grip pliers and pulled out the studs. I was OK with that.
@@21stcenturyfossil7 I did the same thing, and had the blisters to prove it.
Upstate NY, Buffalo area. We just stay home and shovel.
Never saw it in person, but I read at least one owner's manual that mentioned it.
Most people can't understand oil change , much less something like this 😂😢❤
My father had a "69 Impala Sport Coupe with this option back in the late "70s...He said it was a 350 4 bbl with a 4 speed.He used it as his "winter beater" and would actually use the liquid tire chain in the winter.....He could still get the cans of "juice" at a dealership at the time...He said the tire chain stuff worked ok as he always used snow tire anyways......And a rear wheel drive car with snow tires goes like a tank,I don't care what people say otherwise....He remembers that he removed the brackets that held the canisters to the rear wheel wells when he junked the car out along with the button on the dash plus a few feet of vacuum hose.He's still got a few cans of the tire juice too.👍👍
I still have 10 or 12 cans of that stuff. I worked on Max Track at local Buick dealer. System was always broken and some child would switch it on. Bingo car goes to 3 shops then me at the dealer. Turn switch off .3 of an hour flat rate.
Well, back to the old drawing board!
Thank you, That was great information on something I never knew about how it worked alittle..ha
I would love too have that liquid chain on my Ford Ranger...
I remember both of those, and I remember both of them not selling, just like Honda's 4 wheel steering of much later.
Prelude 4WS sold really well. I've seen lots in my lifetime.
@@thewiseguy3529 You think they sold well? I don't think I ever saw one, except in Motor magazines and commercials.
It may have been a dud for Honda, but Nissan put it in some huge successes. The 300ZXTT, Silvia, and GTR got 4ws.
Also, the Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 got 4ws. However those had very limited sales.
We forget how far modern electronics have taken us.
Adam, I had no idea something like this ever existed. This is funny as heck!🤣
Very informative. Thank you.
thank you ..i have never heard of either of these things... Chrysler tried 4 wheel disk brakes on the Imperial in 1974 ..and some kind of mechanical anti lock system that year
I worked at a Ford dealership in the parts department back in the '70's I remember using the Liquid Chain stuff. Used it on a icy road and as I recall it wasn't bad. But I also recall it made a helluva mess !
What a flop. My father's solution to increase traction in snow was the same solution that countless thousands of car and truck drivers used. Get a couple of tire tubes and fill them with 50 to 100 pounds of sand and tie off the ends, then place them in the car trunk as close to the wheel wells as possible. Same in a pickup truck or just shovel snow into the truck bed until you had added several hundred pounds of weight.
It's called winter tires. GM cars are traction compromised by design. Chains work.
My dad used to put a tractor wheel weight in the trunk. Basically a 90 pound disk of metal. We had a bad accident, and the weight went out the side of the car, and rolled about a quarter of a mile out into a field. It would have been lethal, if it had gone out the front.
@@robertheinkel6225 Yeah. The sand filled tubes didn't move around....at all. I understand what Adam was explaining. Basically that this spray on traction " medium " was for emergency stuck situations, not daily snow driving. Still, the sand tubes usually kept one from being in such a situation......that and driving more slowly and cautiously. Something a lot of people won't do. It's usually those " i can drive fast as I want on the snow " idiots who wind up stuck anyway.
I've crossed some of the nastiest mountain passes in the western 48 and lived in the Alaskan arctic long enough to know absolutely nothing beats an older 4wd Chevy pickup with studded+siped winter tires, just throw a few bags of sand or salt in the back and drive according to the road conditions. Don't lock up your wheels when trying to stop, don't spin them when you're trying to go -- you'll always make it to your destination.
I found a can of this stuff in a house I recently bought. I had never heard of it before and couldn’t imagine it working very good 😂