There used to be a place in a little town close to where I grew up that recapped old tires, mainly for commercial vehicles. Places still do it, mainly for commercial vehicles. You still see recaps from truck tires strewn all over the highways.
The place in Wister, Oklahoma would take your old ‘cores’ and sell you a recap for $10. I think it was like $12.50 if you didn’t have a core. For a broke country boy they were awesome! I shudder to think of how many times I drove 80+ on two lane blacktop county roads on $10 tires. My buddy Mallard’s tires were so worn on his pickup in our senior year, we called his tires ‘Goodyear Bald Eagles’. But it got us around.

His muffler wasn’t clamped on good either and there is a half true story out there (legend?) about me picking up a hot muffler bare handed. The half true part was it didn’t really stick to my hands like Mallard says it did. It sure enough blistered both of them though!

BKB