Hankook Tire Supplies Ford with Performance Tyres

Hankook Tire has concluded a 3-year agreement to supply Ford Motor with 140,000 VR-rated (up to 240km/hr) K105s tyres annually. The tyres will be mounted on the Ford Mondeo, a high-quality family car, and will bear the Hankook Tire logo. The export price, to include replacement tyres, will total 22 million euros over three years.

Hankook Tire supplied its first ultra-high-performance tyres (16″ and larger, 55 Series) to a foreign automaker, Volkswagen, last year. The deal with Ford is the second such project, and company officials expect more OE contracts for UHP tyres to follow.

The Mondeo produced at the Ford plant in Belgium is the company’s main passenger car targeting the European market. More than 200,000 units are sold in Europe each year. Goodyear, Pirelli, Michelin, Continental and Bridgestone are also supplying OE tyres for use on the Mondeo.

With this latest contract, Hankook Tire will supply a total of 2.17 million tyres, worth some US$40 million, to Ford a year.