Michelin Man turns 120

He’s looking sprightly for a Supercentenarian who’s reached his 13th decade. Bibendum, the Michelin Man, has turned 120, and will spend much of the year celebrating. A major exhibition covering 120 years of Bibendum will open on 27 July at L’Aventure Michelin, the tyre maker’s museum in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Visitors can revel in the Bibendum story until 31 December 2018.

Inspired by a stack of tyres, Bibendum sprang from the imaginations of André and Edouard Michelin into reality in April 1898 through the brushes of commercial artist Marius Rossillon, who worked under the nom de plume “O’Galop. Taking cue from a poster created for a brewery in Munich several years earlier, the artwork O’Galop presented the Michelin brothers depicted a man made from tyres holding high a glass filled with broken shards and nails. The Latin slogan used on the brewery poster, Nunc Est Bibendum – now it is time to drink – was retained for the Michelin Man’s debut. Underneath, O’Galop added that Michelin tyres “drink up obstacles.”

Bibendum’s first appearance in the rubber took place at the inaugural Paris Motor Show in 1898, and although rival companies dubbed him the “drunkard of the road,” the corpulent, convivial man of rubber soon gained many admirers. He arrived in the UK as a youngster and can still be seen today in stained glass windows designed for Michelin House in London, which opened in 1911.

His appeal continued to grow through the work of numerous artists and illustrators, and in the 1920s Bibendum’s public image became the responsibility of full-time artists employed by Michelin’s own design studio. Over time the trimmings of class that Bibendum initially possessed – including monocle, cigar, signet ring and cuff links – were phased out, measures that paralleled motoring’s transition from a pastime for the wealthy to a means of mobility for all. Bibendum nevertheless remains as white as ever, his hue still resembling the colour of tyres prior to carbon black’s introduction as a reinforcing filler in the 1910s.

Bibendum’s proudest moment perhaps came in 2000 when the Financial Times and R.O.B. Magazine declared him the top corporate logo of all time. A panel of judges, all acclaimed personalities in their specific field of art and design, placed the Michelin Man in first place ahead of renowned symbols such as the London Underground platform signage (which was runner-up), the Red Cross and the Volkswagen logo.

Over the past 120 years, the Michelin Man has appeared in nine key incarnations. The latest, revealed last year, saw Bibendum return to 2D form after spending 17 years as a 3D computer-generated character. Michelin says the newest version of Bibendum “incarnates what the Michelin Group wants to project: an everyday partner who is discreet, considerate and reassuring.”

Happy birthday, Bibendum!