Michelin Celebrates 100 Years in the UK

On 12 May this year, an exclusive gala dinner was held at Forbes House in London, commemorating 100 years of Michelin in the UK. Special guest at the event was Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, patron of the Transaid charity, which aims to promote mobility in Africa and of which Michelin is a founder.

At the dinner, Michelin managing partner René Zingraff presented HRH with a substantial donation to the cause and promised the company’s ongoing support. UK managing director Jim Rickard also made a speech, outlining a brief history of Michelin in the UK and thanking Chris Macgowan, chief executive of the SMMT, for hosting the event. Other guests included members of staff from Michelin, customers and suppliers.

The event that they were celebrating was the incorporation, on 11 May 1905 – almost exactly 100 years ago to the day – of the Michelin Tyre Company Limited in London. André Michelin was the chairman, his brother-in-law Marc Wolff was MD and the organisation had a staff of 17.

By 1906, staff numbers had risen to over 50 and Michelin was definitely here to stay. In 1911, the company designed and built its new HQ at 81 Fulham Road – a building as unique now as it was when constructed, lavishly decorated with pictorial tiles from Michelin’s history and stained glass windows in a design that anticipated the Art Deco movement of a decade later.

This building was to be Michelin’s London base for many years and it was more than just a breathtaking suite of offices – in the basement were 25,000 tyres and 30,000 inner tubes, ready to supply the company’s growing customer base. 1911, incidentally, was the year that saw the first appearance of Michelin’s Guide to the British Isles.

It is sometimes easy to forget the many achievements of Michelin outside the tyre business. For example, André Michelin was a tireless lobbyist for a systematic road numbering programme – after all, what was the use of even the best map (and Michelin was getting into maps and guides in a big way) if you didn’t know where you were in the first place? Michelin’s recommendations were adopted by France in 1913 and the idea spread to Britain eight years later, so we have the tyre company to thank for our road numbering system.

In an article as short as this, it is impossible to mention every achievement or milestone, so what follows is necessarily only a selection. Still on subjects other than tyres; 1914 saw the first Michelin maps of the British Isles and, in 1925, the Michelin Star grading system for restaurants was introduced.

In 1915, the then Government introduced an import duty of 33 1/3rd per cent on motor vehicles and components (including tyres) made overseas. Named the “McKenna Duties” after the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day, these significantly reduced demand for foreign cars. They were repealed in 1924 but, such was the subsequent flood of imports, they were re-introduced the following year and remained in force until the UK joined the European Common Market in 1973.

One effect of the McKenna Duties was that companies based overseas began to investigate the possibility of manufacturing in Great Britain and Michelin was amongst these. The search began for a suitable site and, from an initial shortlist of 11 towns, Stoke-on-Trent was selected and the Michelin factory opened for business in 1927.

By now the motorcar was growing in popularity and. In 1930, the number of private cars on GB roads exceeded one million for the first time. With this growth came a need for legislation (and the realisation that motorists could provide a good source of income) and it was in 1931 – also the year in which André Michelin died, aged 78 – that the Highway Code was introduced. Motor Vehicle Construction and Use Regulations became law too, making pneumatic tyres compulsory on cars and commercial vehicles in the UK.

Marking Time in Wartime

When the Second World War arrived, it proved a traumatic time for Michelin. Up till now the UK company had relied on day-to-day contact with Clermont-Ferrand, on whom it depended almost totally for functions such as research, design and testing. The invasion of France put paid to that – indeed, Michelin UK was carefully watched as its French parent was under German control and it quickly had to become self-sufficient in those disciplines that had previously been handed down from Clermont-Ferrand. Just to make matters worse, when the Japanese came into the war, they invaded large parts of the Far East, including the valuable rubber plantations such as Michelin’s in Indonesia.

Despite these setbacks, Michelin performed heroically, working three shifts a day, seven days a week and made an enormous contribution to the war effort. Of course, there was little time or resources to devote to tyres, but the years of marking time came to an end when the war finished.

The following year (1946) saw what some regard as the single most significant tyre-related achievement since the development of the pneumatic tyre; Michelin patented the steel-braced radial. The 40s and 50s were a busy time – in 1948 the first double-decker bus fitted with Michelin tyres took to the roads in the UK and, in 1949, Great Britain became the world’s leading car exporter.

The radial continued to have an impact and, in 1954, the Bristol 404 became the first British-designed-and-built car with Michelin X radials as standard equipment. Two years earlier, a radial truck tyre had been introduced.

Michelin has always taken an innovative approach to marketing – for proof, look no further than the global success of Bibendum, the Michelin Man, as a symbol of the company – and this was illustrated in February 1957, when the UK company’s first TV ad appeared on Midlands ITV.

As we approached the 60s, Michelin underwent considerable change and expansion. François Michelin became head of the company in 1959 and, back in the UK the same year, the first example of that motoring icon, the Mini, rolled off the production line.
1960 was significant, both for the UK and Michelin.

The first 67-mile stretch of the M1 opened, MoT tests were introduced and Michelin took advantage of Government grants to build and open a new factory at Burnley (16,000 square metres in area at a cost of £3 million). Sadly, in today’s global tyre business, this plant proved too small to be viable economically and the last tyre was produced there in March 2002.

Back to 1961 and there was good news when Ford appointed Michelin as the standard supplier of tyres for all commercial vehicles built in the UK. And still the expansion continued, with a £14 million investment in 1963 a factory on the outskirts of Belfast, producing radial car tyres. Again, this plant proved uneconomic and closed down in 1984. 1963 was also the year when Michelin introduced a version of its Radial X especially for London Taxis, offering up to 100 per cent greater mileage than previous cross ply tyres.

Yet more factories were built and began producing tyres; Ballymena in Northern Ireland opened in 1969 to make truck tyres and is still operating, as is the car tyre factory at Dundee, which opened in 1972 and, by 1980, had produced 20 million tyres. A factory at Aberdeen, producing only steel cord, opened in 1973 and closed in 1986.

As the 20th Century drew to a close, Michelin continued to innovate and grow, with the range of maps and guides expanding, notably including a Road Atlas of Europe. Michelin also took on the publication of the famous “I-Spy” series of children’s activity books, introducing the younger generation to a smiling Bibendum on the cover.

On the tyre front, Michelin introduced a new manufacturing process, C3M, in 1992 and the Green Tyre was introduced in 1994, with reduced rolling resistance giving greater fuel economy. Even greater innovation followed in 1997 with Michelin’s PAX system, one feature of which is a run-flat capability for 50 miles at 50 mph following a puncture. Michelin has licensed PAX to several other tyre manufacturers and a number of OE contracts have been secured.

1998 marked Bibendum’s 100th birthday and the following year saw Edouard Michelin installed as head of the company. Still Michelin was looking for fresh challenges and, in 2001, it returned to the Formula 1 arena after a 17-year absence, having retired successfully after the 1984 season. This success was repeated in the 2005 F1 championship. Also in 2001, an era came to an end when all new tyre production ceased at Stoke-on-Trent.

And that brings us nearly up to date. When Michelin first came to the UK, there were around 16,000 cars on the country’s roads. Today that figure is in excess of 31 million and Michelin is rightly proud of the part it has played in helping to service that growth, as it looks forward to the next 100 years.