Did the Pace Car come from the factory with solid white lettered tires, or white outline lettered tires?

The pace cars came with "Goodyear GT Radial" tires.  They are raised white outline style, not full white say as with the current "Goodyear Eagle GTII" tires. 

Thanks.  I know a little about date coding on tires before 2000.  But is there anyway to know that the tires on a 1978 Pace Car are original.  In other words, can you tell which decade the tires were made, since the date codes back then only showed the last digit of the year.  So, how can tell a tire made in 1978 (8 year code), from a tire made in 1988 (still an 8 as the year code)?

One of our members(hunt4cleanair) here has written several articles about this very subject(tire dating) in the NCRS Restorer magazine. The info is quite surprising.
I think his last article dealt with the '78-'82 tires, and the differences in "factory installed" tires vs. replacements.
Perhaps he'll see this, and shed some light. If not, I can dig out the articles and post some of the info...

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Joel Adams
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