A Question Of Grip: The Conti Winter-Roadshow 2001

Time has come for German car drivers to renew their acquaintance with the cold season. Using their annual country-wide winter roadshows, Continental’s experts are explaining the aim and object of winter tyres with their better grip on low temperature roads. Because of a special compound – in contrast to summer tyres –they are made as flexible as possible for road temperatures below seven degrees, in order to produce enough grip when starting, braking or cornering.

This flexibility ensures the necessary traction of the tread on asphalt, snow and ice. There are more and more car drivers who realise that adapting to winter tyres has more advantages than merely better grip; a view which is supported by constantly rising sales figures over recent years. Whereas in 1997 30 million of these winter specialists were sold all over Europe, demand rose to 37 million last year.

In some European countries even more winter than summer tyres have been sold so far. Thus, last year’s winter tyre market share was about 40% in Germany, 59% in Austria, 57% in Switzerland and 61% in Sweden. About 16 million winter tyres were sold in Germany alone last year.

The reason for this demand is the increasing number of new cars with their more powerful engine performance. The trend towards higher performance cars causes the consumer to order winter tyres designed for speeds over 190 km/h. Another reason: car drivers want fun when driving even in the winter, as long as road and weather conditions are appropriate.

If possible, they choose tyres of the same size and speed rating as their summer tyres. Also, research by Continental reveals that fun-driving in winter need not be more expensive. Winter tyres will cost about 0,20 Euro each day in use.