3 solid tyre brands: Continental tailors portfolio for differing customer needs

Continental Commercial Specialty Tires is repositioning itself in the industrial solid tyre segment by clearly defining the role each of its three brands play. Going forwards, the Continental brand will serve as its range of premium solid tyres, General Tire will provide a home to the company’s medium intensity portfolio, and it will sell solid tyres for low intensity use under the Barum brand name.

Continental

Continental solid tyres are “ideal for demanding high intensity applications where a high level of mileage, endurance and durability is required.” The manufacturer states that its Super-Elastic and Press-on-Band (POB) tyres are “extremely stable and ensure low rolling resistances thanks to the Continental Plus compound.” The tyre’s lower heat generation leads to increased energy efficiency and reliable performance in the most demanding of 24/7 applications. The tyres are ideally suited for forklifts and other industrial vehicle applications used in production and manufacturing, warehousing, logistics and airport ground support.

Production and industrial sites where a constant clear working environment is very important, such as in food processing or the pharmaceutical industry, benefit from the non-marking ‘clean version’ of these tyres, which leave no black marks on floors.

General Tire

Continental is launching three new General Tire products for forklifts, trailers and other types of industrial equipment in several sales regions around the world this year. The General Tire Lifter is a Super-Elastic tyre for indoor and outdoor logistics applications with a strong focus on a durable and robust performance. Ideal for medium intensity use, the General Tire Lifter is primarily intended for use in applications of up to two shifts, where the focus is first and foremost on getting the job done without worrying about tyre related downtime.

The General Tire Smooth POB is aimed at indoor applications where rolling comfort and traction are best provided by a smooth profile on hard, flat indoor surfaces. The General Tire Trac with its tread grooves is designed for applications where a high-grip edge is needed, such as on ramps and outdoor use where the surfaces are more uneven and are subject to rain, and therefore potentially slippery.

The General Tire Lifter and Smooth are also available in ‘clean’ versions.

Barum

Complementing the Continental and General Tire ranges is a new Barum Industry solid tyre, which is “particularly suitable for applications with high-cost awareness and short operating cycles.” Continental has specifically redesigned Barum tyres for operators who use their forklift trucks only occasionally or where utilisation is low. For these applications, the Barum Industry will “deliver the required performance without letting the user down.”

Continental will launch the aforementioned Barum Industry range around the world during the course of 2022.