Hankook inaugurates Nürburgring Workshop

For many petrolheads, a lap of the Nürburgring is akin to a pilgrimage, and the circuit in Germany’s Eifel region is also a favourite site for performance car developers. Hankook Tire now has a presence in the neighbourhood, too. During a small ceremony held yesterday, the tyre maker officially opened the Nürburgring Workshop, a new branch office of its Hankook Europe Technical Centre (ETC).

The official opening came several months after the Nürburgring Workshop quietly commenced operations. Hankook says the decision to invest in a dedicated field office adjacent to this demanding circuit follows “massive” volume growth within its original equipment business for high-performance vehicles.

Circuit testing integral to development

For a long time now, and as an original equipment partner of manufacturers such as Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Volkswagen, as well as their performance subsidiaries, Hankook has been carrying out extensive tests of its double-ultra UUHP original equipment tyres on the renowned Nordschleife. The tyre maker believes the ’Green Hell’ offers ideal conditions for extensively testing performance vehicles to ensure their tyres meet demanding manufacturer requirements as well as those of customers. These final product tests are an integral part of the development process and are clearly defined as a decisive acceptance criterion for many high-end vehicles.

“Opening our workshop in the immediate vicinity of the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife enables us to carry out performance and load tests much more efficiently, which are increasingly important in the field of high-performance road vehicles. This enables us to ensure that we offer our customers the best possible products with the highest level of performance,” says Andreas Pürschel, head of the European Hankook test team at its Research and Development Centre in Germany.

Hankook opened the Hannover-based ETC in 1997 and says this facility has allowed it to significantly expand research projects in Europe. In addition to developing customised tyres for original equipment used on vehicles in Europe, product testing under the most stringent conditions is also an integral part of the ETC’s work. This facility is complemented by the Technotrac winter tyre test site, which Hankook opened in Ivalo, Finland in 2017, and with the newly inaugurated Nürburgring workshop as well as production and indoor testing facilities at its manufacturing site in Hungary, Hankook claims to stand for “integrated tyre development and production in Europe.”