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Tires have changed as the paths we travel on have evolved. From the first rubber bicycle tires to high end racing tires, tire manufacturers continue to invent new ways to improve modern modes of transportation.

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Rob:

Welcome to our podcast. All about the car brought to you by Scheirl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman an auto service specialist with over 44 years of industry experience, Back again with me today, our regular guests, Brian Call. Brian's a veteran in the automotive industry with over 40 years of experience. Hello Brian.

Brian:

Hi, Rob. How are you doing today?

Rob:

I'm doing great. And Bill Scheirl, a guy that's been driving a long time, always keeps us on track and has a lot of great questions. Hello bill.

Bill:

Hello, Rob. Glad to be in the car today.

Rob:

Glad to have you back. Well, let's hop in, buckle up and hit the road. Today we're talking about tire brands. You know, tires have played a major role in our world's mobility in the 20th century. The paths that we roll on have gone from ruddy and muddy to hard paved super expressways. Historical greats that have led the way in rubber tire.Technology include John Dunlop, Charles Goodyear, Phillips Straus, Andre Michelin, and Harvey Firestone. Hey you may recognize some of those names. Charles Goodyear patented the vulcanization process back in 1844, which made rubber water in winter proof while preserving its elasticity. John Dunlop is recognized as the inventor of the first practical pneumatic tire. His patent was granted in 1888, not for the automobile tires, but for bicycles, Andre Michelin, it wasn't until 1895 that he and his brother Adored first used pneumatic tires on an automobile. However, wasn't very reliable. Michelin holds the patent for the first removable pneumatic tire that went on to win the world's first long distance cycling race in 1891.

Bill:

And you're saying pneumatic because it's rubber?

Rob:

I'm saying pneumatic because it holds air.

Bill:

Okay. Without a tube?

Rob:

Yeah, there was different ways. Well, it could be pneumatic would still be with a tube as well, but as long as it's supported and held air in whatever form they they've figured out at that time and Phillips Strauss, there's a name you don't, you really don't hear much about in tires, but he changed all that in 1911 by inventing a combination of a tire and an Eller airfield inner tubes. So there you go, Bill, that was 1911. So it took a while.

Bill:

That took a while.

New Speaker:

Harvey Firestone the inventor of the non-skid tread. Firestone introduces the non-skid tread in 1908 and goes on to back a driver in the first Indy 500 race who then wins on a set of Firestone tires. So let's dig in a little bit further into Goodyear. I've got some interesting facts that we dug up with a couple of the main manufacturers of tires worldwide. So Charles Goodyear, obviously his last name filters through to Goodyear tires these days. He actually wasn't the founding father of the Goodyear tire and rubber company. So Charles Goodyear died 38 years before the company was founded that bears his name. Frank Seiberling founded the Goodyear tire and rubber company in 1898 and chose the name because he was the father of vulcanization.

Bill:

Charles was?

Rob:

Charles was the father of vulcanization yes. So Frank Seiberling brought it all to life and started the Goodyear tire and rubber company.

Bill:

So what about the wingfoot or this, you know, that logo, we just know it as the wing foot.

Rob:

Yeah. For those of you that don't know what the wingfoot, I mean, what it looks like it's the winged foot that comes right, goes right between good and year in their logo.

Brian:

It looks like a high top sneaker.

Rob:

Yeah.

Bill:

I always think of it as like, what's the god Mercury?

Brian:

Atlas.

Bill:

No, he's the big, I'm not going to get that the wing foot I'm going to have to Google that.

Rob:

Yeah. You know what? I, I looked that up and I did not write it down anywhere. What the Wingfoot meant. It comes from, a god I believe, but the significance I did not write down either. So Goodyear did adopt that trademark, the winged foot trademark back in 1900. So it's been around a long time, very iconic for sure.

Bill:

And then also the Goodyear blimp, like that's the brand to most people

Speaker 1:

That's the icon I think everybody knows. Everybody's either seen it in person or seen a pictures of it. There's actually a, I believe currently three US-based blimps and one in Europe. Now they haven't a Goodyear's been in this floating air type business for a long time. Actually. I don't know how you say it, but I almost want to say pneumatic, but I don't know if that's a really the way it works or not, but they made a thousand balloons and 60 airships during the war as well as 750,000 gas masks. So there's a lot of history there for sure.

Bill:

Talk about corporations, responding to certain things, similar to what has happened lately with the pandemic of car manufacturers, making ventilators and all sorts of things.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, you use your strength to help humanity get through, for sure. You still have first Goodyear blimp called B1. Gee. I wonder how they got that. That's pretty creative. I actually flew in 1917 and flew over Chicago. So not far from where we're sitting today and that's pretty interesting. And like I said, there's three U S Airship bases for the Goodyear blimp. Where are those Brian?

Brian:

One's in Ohio, and then Pompano beach, Florida, and then out west Carson, California.

Rob:

Excellent, and each one of those, I would imagine probably houses one blimp each.

Brian:

Yep, one big blimp.

Rob:

Actually I've really got a cool link you got to check out. So go onto our website and check out the link that we have there on the Goodyear blimp. It'll get you behind the scenes and show what it looks like in that warehouse. And when I watched that, you can actually see the blimp coming out of that warehouse, that big base, I guess, airship base. It's really cool. The newest blimp, Wingfoot 1 launched in 2014 and then there's a European blimp. That's new in Europe in 2020. There wasn't a whole lot of information on that, but that's pretty recent. So they probably don't have a lot of info out there on that yet. But obviously Goodyear is really, really into it in a very iconic brand. For sure.

Bill:

It's almost as iconic as the Michelin man.

Rob:

It almost is. They kind of run hand in hand in two different types of a feel for sure. So funny you mentioned the Michelin man Bill that's the next tire manufacturer that I was going to talk about. There's a lot of information and a lot of history back going way back to Michelin being one of the founding fathers, for sure. And I think the Michelin man much like the Goodyear blimp is an icon that we are all familiar with. And these days, what we see with the Michelin man is a big, almost like a marshmallow guy, kind of fluffy, puffy white, and just really happy. And it's a very good icon for the Michelin company, but you know what? He did not start out as in my opinion, the best guy out there for sure. Uh, he started out as a smoker, a drinker and a ladies, man.

Bill:

No, I think it's to say that this is a French company so that this person was Freench.

Rob:

Absolutely. And I think maybe that was a good thing to be back then.

Bill:

Yeah, I get it, ya know, hey, iconic.

Rob:

So you want to take a stab Brian at the official name of the Michelin man. That's a French name.

Brian:

I know him as Binbendum.

Rob:

Okay. So what does Binbendum mean?

Bill:

To drink, or drinking, right?

Rob:

Yup, absolutely. So the term that they use the phrase was, and I'm gonna try this, but it was nunc es bibendum.

Bill:

I don't speak French that well, but that would be more German. So somewhere has got to be nu es es bibendum.

Rob:

That sounds better.

Bill:

Yeah, it may be more Spanish.

Rob:

It must be my German background made me kinda grunt that out a little bit. What's interesting... Yeah... Is what that means. It means now is the time to drink and you think, well, what the heck does that have to do with tires back in the day? But the further research that we did, it meant that the Michelin tire could drink up road hazards going down the road. It could just go right over them, just drink them up. So not really sure how that all came to be, but it seems really interesting.

Bill:

Well, so that you know, like that whole image of tough and a drinker or whatever, y'all like, that's just that rugged tire image of their product could do all those things.

Rob:

Absolutely. It makes sense. If you think about it, there's just a lot of deep history here. And if you go back to and look at some of you can actually look at some of the older images of the Michelin man or Bibendum, and he was kind of spooky looking. I think the kids would actually have nightmares about this guy. It was a bunch of skinny tires stacked up and the, he even showed up in parades with somebody stuck inside these tires and pretty scary. So the question comes up is why is he white? I mean, if you think about the Michelin man today, he's white and he always has been white. So why would he have been white when we all know tires are black?

Bill:

I don' know.

Brian:

I have no idea.

Bill:

White side walls

Rob:

You just about hit it there bill, because actually the Michelin Man was created way back before carbon black was added to tires in 1912. So tires were white back when he was created and they just kept that white going. So carbon black made the tires black. I'm not really sure of the reason why they had to be black and they went away from white, but that was an important piece in the process of making tires back then.

Bill:

Sure. That hid more dirt.

Rob:

That could be probably easier to keep it clean, but you hit it right on the nail with these white sidewalls. That's just one thing that kind of played through over the years too. But then finally, but Bibendum, the Michelin man took on more of a refined friendly image in the 1920s and he just kind of progressed from there. Today he's known as the strong, silent type, he's a travel agent and a world, renowned food critic.

Brian:

So what do you mean by that?

Rob:

Well, that's just it, a food critic where the heck did that come from, but that would be through the Michelin guide. And I think the Michelin guide, and I learned something about this because I didn't know much about this, but the Michelin guide has been around since the beginning of Michelin as well. It was actually the brainchild of the Michelin brothers that started the company. So have either of you ever experienced the Michelin guide at all?

Brian:

I have not.

Bill:

I only know of Michelin star restaurants, you know, like that they will tout that. I don't know, like it takes a lot to get there. Cause I think there's only, I don't know. I'd have to look to see if the restaurant that I'm thinking of. L'etoile, French, kind of funny in Madison actually has any Michelin stars. That's the only one that I'm aware of that would even be possible.

Rob:

So what do you suppose a Michelin star is? Explain this to us Bill.

Bill:

I think it's a food critic that you have to have certain levels of service and food quality and it just marches on up. I don't actually know how many stars there are like three, four or five. I mean, I don't know if that, you know, that's where it gets into. Does that go directly to the star system within hostels and hotels in Europe and even in the states, like on Google, on Expedia or whatever, you're looking something up, it gets number of stars. But I think that that has to do with more like favorable reviews versus actually a Michelin guide star, two star hotel or three-star hotel, all very confusing. A lot of questions had a lot of answers. I just know the more Michelin stars, the higher the price in a restaurant. That's a clear connection.

Rob:

Okay. So I, I would assume that Michelin's not in the hotel business or restaurant business, but maybe just traveling advice?

Bill:

Yeah, it was critiquing them. So like a Michelin star restaurant or a Michelin star. Cause then there's other stars. I mean the Europeans, know how to categorize their stuff very well.

Rob:

So this plays together with motoring or traveling and on Michelin tires and places to stop that are accredited by the star system through Michelin.

Bill:

Yeah. It makes sense to me why they would have started to develop that whole world of trust and directing people to get out travel and where do I go? And these are restaurants and places that we have approved and that are at a quality that you're going to enjoy based on a star system.

Rob:

Interesting. The research that I did on this the very beginning of Michelin time, they were given on a complimentary basis to motorists and cyclists who encouraged travel in a time when there were fewer than 3000 cars in the country. So that's really going back to day one almost for the most part. And what's interesting here is their thought process on creating the Michelin guide was the more that they promoted travel led to increased tire wear because of which then led to increased tire sales. So really very smart move back then for the Michelin company.

Brian:

So they're trying to get people out, driving around and wear out their tires.

Rob:

Absolutely.

Bill:

Totally makes sense.

Rob:

The Michelin guide is still active today. So this has been an idea that happened over 120 years ago, probably 120 years ago, and still working today for sure you can check it out. And we've got a link posted on our website, all about the car podcast.com. So check that out and you can get right into the Michelin guide and learn more about it. Today's guide includes lists of best restaurants, offers, destinations, events, and is pretty much just a lifestyle. And like always, we always break away halfway through our podcast and we take a road trip Wisconsin, and you know what, bill, this one, it might not be Michelin star rated, but we're going to go over to the west side of Wisconsin and check out the locks on the Mississippi river.

Bill:

Isn't that called the great river road?

Rob:

That is, and that great river road does run through several states. But what we're interested in is right here in Wisconsin and we share a small portion of that great river road, which includes, I think four locks.

Bill:

Correct.

Rob:

Four separate locks. I have not been there, but you know what? It's gotta be just a beautiful drive in the fall.

Bill:

Right?.

Brian:

Oh it's great. Running up and down the Mississippi river, especially in the fall with the colors, you go from Prairie Duchein, to Lacrosse and north of there you are following right along the river.

Bill:

On their website, well that great river road website, there's one, a lock in Alma, Fountains City, Trumpelow in Genoa. Have you been to any of them Brian?

Brian:

Been to a couple of them Lincsville which is a little farther south and Genoa, which is one that you mentioned great place to view the locks. And if you get a chance, you should watch them lock a barge through. It's just amazing what they do.

Bill:

I was going to say, you know, we're talking about these locks, what is the lock? So, I mean, I get the fact of the river does not stay at the same height all the way from Canada down to the Gulf. So we got to step it down.

Brian:

We're getting deep,

Bill:

You're talking locks. I mean, what does that actually mean? Like what happens at one I've not

Brian:

The lock and dam system was put in back in the, oh goodness, twenties in the thirties to create a body of water that you can navigate throughout most of the year. Prior to that, there are times during the summer, you can actually walk across the Mississippi in Wisconsin because it's pretty much dried up and floods during the spring. And these locks and dams are put in to control it and to create commerce a way to ship the products up and down the Mississippi.

Rob:

So to keep it as a working river,.

Brian:

Yep. They got winged dams, the actual dams, the locks, that's all part of this system. And with the shipping, you got to get around the dam. So they actually break the barges apart and take sections of it through, tie it up on the other side and slowly work their way to get all of the different individual barge through to retie it. And then go on down to the next lock and dam.

Bill:

Amazing. Think about the investment of the infrastructure at that time in our nation's history for the north and south transportation in the center of the country.

Brian:

And it's ongoing. they're constantly dredging this past summer, the water was so low that they were having problems with the barges. They couldn't pass each other in certain sections of the river because of the low depth.

Rob:

Now Brian, I wouldn't hold you to this question, but about how long does it take, if we were to go and make the investment driving over there and you wanted to see one of these ships coming through the locks in person, what kind of a time investment is that? How long does it take for that barge to go through the lock?

Brian:

Depends on the size of the barge. Obviously, as you get farther down to the south Mississippi and so on, they get significantly bigger. Up here, it can take a couple of hours to get a barge through.

Rob:

So just one barge, a couple of hours

Brian:

From start to stop

Rob:

I'm trying to picture this. So if the barge is going south on the river, they're dropping down?

Brian:

Yep.

Rob:

okay.

Brian:

They tie up there's places for them to tie up outside of the lock and they'll break off a couple of individual barge pieces, go through the lock, tie it up on the bottom side, lock back up through with the tug and take more sections down. And then they gotta tie, these things all back together. And the ropes that they use are, oh goodness. A couple inches in diameter. They're just huge. Well, it's a lot of work.

Bill:

And motor, I mean, recreational recreational boats go through the locks too.

Brian:

Oh yeah. I've been through.

Rob:

Oh really?

Bill:

Yeah?

Rob:

Oh!

Brian:

it's interesting. Going through on a small, it was 21 foot Cuddy when I was doing it and to lock through is pretty cool. It'll raise you up 10, 15 feet or lower depending on the direction that you're going.

Rob:

So I'm pictured this little fishing boat coming up and waiting at the lock or is it timed? Is there certain times they do it wait for more boats to come or is there one little guy sitting out there?

Brian:

Obviously the barge traffic takes priority. So if there's no barge traffic, the lock master will let the little flat bottom go through.

Rob:

Oh, that's funny.

Brian:

Little 16 foot flat bottom with a 25 horse motor.

Bill:

And I think a lot of these locks have phone numbers. So to call, if you're going to make a road trip to call and get more specific information, maybe they have a sky. I can only think that they might have a schedule of all the ships coming through. I have no idea To be able to see something and to be able to schedule it.

Rob:

No, I'm just one final question. You know, I'm going to ask this kind of question. There's got to be, I would imagine tourism plays a part in the great river road and the lock that area of the state has gotta be restaurants, breweries...

Brian:

There's fantastic restaurants up and down. You get a mile outside of Prairie Ducheine, one of the best steak or excuse me, one of the best fish fries in the state and scattered all the way up through and up into Lacrosse and north of Lacrosse there's fabulous little restaurants.

Rob:

So this whole road trip idea could definitely be a long weekend for sure.

Brian:

You could take a couple of days easily.

Rob:

It's on my list again. Awesome. So coming back from our road trip, Wisconsin and touring the locks on the west side of the state, along the Mississippi river, we're going to go a little bit more global. We're going to talk about tire manufacturers from around the world. So there's a lot of different tire manufacturers. My research showed 75 different tire manufacturers. That's a lot of rubber trees out there, a lot of plants. And that was as of 2018. So I'm sure it's changed a little bit, one way or the other since then.

New Speaker:

But what are some other are brands that we haven't talked about other than beyond Michelin and Goodyear

Brian:

Bridgestone would be another one. And within each of these major manufacturers portfolio, they have their premium brand where they put all of their research and development into that product to make it cutting edge. Then they have sub-brands underneath that. So for instance, Michelin also owns BF Goodrich and Uniroyal as well as private label tires that they build under a different brand. So as you go down, the Michelin's the premium, the BF Goodrich has a lot of the current technology, but maybe not as much. And then the Uniroyal is going to have some of the older technology. It's still great product, but it's not cutting edge, but you get into Goodyear, Goodyear has Goodyear Dunlop, Kelly, and now Cooper that'll be incorporated in this next coming year. A continental teamed up with general, and this just goes on and on.

Rob:

So with the Bridgestone brand, you started talking about their Firestone is one of their second level.

Brian:

That's what it's classified as, but it's still a great product. You're just not going to get some of the new cutting edge technology as you would like in a Bridgestone tire.

Bill:

And then it is truly a global product arena because Bridgestone is a Japanese manufactured product.

Rob:

Yeah. They're actually the largest tire company in Japan, that's sayin' a lot. Japan's big.

Brian:

And are they number one in the world?

Rob:

I believe they are number one currently in the world. Absolutely.

Brian:

And then you got your Michelin product, which is a French base product. Goodyear, which is now the only major tire manufacturer since they bought out Cooper, in the United States.

Bill:

Then we have Perelli, which is Italian, right?

Brian:

They're Italian, come on a lot of the high end car.

Rob:

That company actually started in 1872. So obviously that wasn't cars at that time. It must've been bicycles motorcycles. I'm not sure, but

Bill:

Isn't like bike racing and everything Italian back in the day?

Rob:

It was that's where it all, I think it all began really in Perelli is one of those brands that are always paired with the greats like Ferrari Lamborghini and Maserati. So those are the going to be the higher end European style cars that are built for performance, which is kind of interesting. It's kind of a neat part of the, part of the business for sure.

Brian:

Unaroyal, which recently got bought out by recently talking about the last 150 years here,

Bill:

Loosely.

Brian:

Yes. They had a plant in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and that's,

Rob:

That's close to home.

New Speaker:

that was operating up until the mid eighties. I believe that was a major employer for the Eau Claire area. And it really hurt their economy when that, when that plant got closed.

Bill:

So in the end of the day, whereas we're talking about brands, I go into a store to buy a brand or a tire. Does any of that make a difference? You talked about technology and that top tier technology from one within different brands and going down, but what makes the difference or philosophically does each brand do something specifically really well? I mean, I go, Yeah. I mean, I think of like coffee brands or whatever. Everybody has their favorite flavor right now. Like does Goodyear do something that Michelin doesn't and Michelin does something that Perelli doesn't and, you know, going down the line,

Brian:

There is no one perfect tire. So the manufacturers developing this particular tire to do this well, and they have to give something up. So let's take a race tire, for instance, there's no tread on most race tires. So it does really, really well on dry, clean surfaces, but it's terrible in the rain. So you're giving up something to get something else. And what's the most important feature to you or most, a couple important features to you for your car, for your truck, a truck that goes off road all the time would not be suited for a passenger car that's driving down the highway all the time. So your question's difficult to answer. So consulting with your tire salesman and figuring out what features are best for you then helps you determine the answer to your question,

Rob:

To kinda step into this conversation a little bit, your question Bill, about what different manufacturers are known for over the others. And Brian's comment there, for example, back in, you're gonna have to tell me what year it was. I can't remember, but Goodyear came out with their wet tire or wet traction technology in the Aquatread

Brian:

The aquatread yeah. That was back.

Rob:

'86?

Brian:

It's a little later than that is like '88, '89.

Rob:

Okay.

Brian:

And that was designed for wet traction. It was leading edge technology at that time to help channel the water through and away from the tire.

Bill:

So if at that moment I was looking for a brand, it would have been Goodyear because I drove on a lot of, I lived in an area that had a lot of rain and wet

Brian:

Yes. They say out of market. It would be great for that.

Speaker 2:

I didn't want to have poor dissing Seattle.

Rob:

Another interesting fact that I had researched and come up with that, it follows along the same conversation is a Continental. The Continental tire brand really is involved with a lot of different things. Automotive related, other than tires, for example, well, they're a German based brand, but they also produce powertrain components, brake systems, vehicle electronics, and instrumentation, which is the only company I found that really goes that far sideways away from the tire manufacturing business, but stays within the automotive and thought that was interesting. So I think they all, all the different brands have or are trying to find their niche or trying to find what specifically they can focus on that will help build their own brand.

Bill:

That makes sense. And to your point, I guess there's not a perfect tire. Everyone has their own preferences. And to really what I hear you saying is start with your specific need. Like I want this tire to last, I don't care about a lot. I just want it to run 80,000 miles. Give me the brand that makes the longest longevity tire.

Rob:

Okay. We covered a lot of things today in our, all about the car podcast, tire brands, some really interesting facts in regards to the Goodyear blimp and where that all began and where it is today and the Michelin company with the Michelin man Bibendum and the Michelin guide that's still alive and well today. We also talked about a lot of different tire manufacturers around the world who went a little bit more globally with that, and also took a road trip to the Mississippi that touches our western side of the state of Wisconsin, talked about the locks and visiting those and the fall colors and stopping by at a couple of restaurants and some good steak over there that Brian referred to. So ride along with us next time, when we talk about tailgating, one of my favorite subjects, where it's all about the car. To listen to previous episodes, find additional resources, or to send us a message head to all about the car podcast.com. We'll see you next time.