Pneumatic tire for vehicle wheels

Claim 1

A pneumatic tire and wheel assembly comprising a tire provided with a tread portion, two bead portions, and two sidewalls, the section midlines of said sidewalls having a concavity turned towards the outside, a wheel for mounting said tire, said wheel having channel-shaped seat portions, with a supPorting base and two lateral walls extending along the entire circumference of the rims of said wheel, each bead portion of said tire being seated in a corresponding seat of the rims of said wheel, and a circumferentially extending annular element mounted on each of said rims, at least a part of the axially outermost zone of said bead portion being radially compressed between the base of said channel-shaped seat and said annular element, the radially innermost diameter of said annular element being smaller than the radially outermost diameter of the axially outer lateral walls of said seat portion of said rims, said annular element comprising at least one shaped metallic element of curcular section embedded in a shaped rubber element, the cross section of said annular element being positioned eccentrically with respect to that of said shaped rubber element, said shaped rubber element being provided with an appendix intended to be received in an appropriate groove on the radially outer surface of the bead, said groove extending along the whole circumferential development of the bead.