GT Radial team cycles 707,265m in 24 hours to raise over £1,000 for Marie Curie
Raising more than £1,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care, GT Radial’s Le Mans 24 Hour Cycle Race team pedalled 169 laps of the 4,185m Circuit Bugatti. The team, comprising Brian McDermott, managing director UK for Giti Tire; Ellis Hadley, senior test engineer; Martin Gibson, senior test engineer; and Bertrand Saint-Supery, OEM EU technical director, covered a total of 707,265m to finish 340th out of 458.
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30th consecutive month of growth in UK car registrations – SMMT
Traditionally a fallow month ahead of the introduction of new plates, August has continued the trend of new car registration growth in the UK. Announcing the figures, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders revealed that 72,163 new cars were registered in August, a 9.4 per cent rise on August 2013 and the 30th consecutive month of growth. Anticipation is now growing for September, usually a far busier month on the back of the plate change.
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Kumho Tyre launches new customer-facing website
Kumho Tyre’s new customer-facing corporate website has been launched. The new site focuses on providing a better browsing experience for those visiting on mobile devices, an approach the tyre manufacturer calls a “mobile first, fully responsive perspective”. As a result of this responsive design, the site adapts automatically to suit the size of the user’s screen. Kumho claims this resulted in a 50 per cent increase in the amount of mobile traffic to the website in its first week, with early feedback saying 96 per cent of visitors “would recommend” the site, from 1,000 unique surveys. The site’s usability and design attractiveness have also been rated at least “good” by more than 98 per cent of respondents.
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Goodyear aggressively pursuing leading position in UK truck tyre market
Following the completion of a period of transition, and with market volumes on the up, Goodyear Dunlop is aggressively pursuing sales growth, including winning some of the biggest fleets in the UK. Tyrepress spoke about the companys expansion strategy with Goodyear UK and Ireland commercial director, Marc Preedy at the end of August.
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Goodyear wins Eddie Stobart fleet tyre supply deal
Goodyear Dunlop has won the contract to supply tyres to Eddie Stobart, the UK’s largest haulage fleet. The five-year contract, which took effect at the start of August, sees Goodyear Dunlop supply new tyres largely based around the company’s latest generation Kmax product offering to Stobarts and will be service by the Truck Force network.
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Euro Car Parts adds three Unipart Automotive recruits to its National Accounts department
Euro Car Parts, a leading UK distributor of quality parts for all makes of car and LCV, has strengthened its National Accounts department by recruiting three former Unipart Automotive employees. Ian Stevenson and David Dawson have joined as national account managers while Matthew Jones has joined the national accounts commercial team.
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Bridgestone staying strong in a growing truck tyre market
The good news is that with demand up and with the company selling as big a proportion of retreads as ever, Bridgestone’s UK truck tyre business remains a key player in the UK truck tyre market. In the Republic of Ireland things are even better. However, premium manufacturers like Bridgestone have also seen the rise in the prominence of lower cost alternatives in recent years. While companies like Bridgestone continue to occupy leading positions when it comes to blue-chip and other national fleets, the wider context brings new challenges with it, especially when it comes to countering volume versus value strategies. Tyres & Accessories spoke with Bridgestone UK commercial director Greg Ward in order to find out more.
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Camping and Caravanning Club hitches up to TyreSafe
TyreSafe has welcomed The Camping and Caravanning Club as the latest organisation to become a supporter of its road safety campaigning activities. As the world’s oldest club for lovers of camping and caravan getaways, The Camping and Caravanning Club represents the interests of more than half a million members. As such, its involvement in TyreSafe campaigns is set to raise awareness about the importance of correctly maintained tyres among the UK’s 650,000 caravan and motorhome owners.
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Wheels of change?
The recession had a disproportionately large impact on the haulage industry. With many firms going to the wall and others trimming their fleets right back and running their tyres to death, this all had a similarly big impact on the truck tyre business too. Back in 2009 Tyres & Accessories observed that the combination of shrunken demand and aggressive competition from up-and-coming manufacturers (namely Hankook at that time) really shook the market up. Five years later, comparing the market then and now reveals that this “shake-up” trajectory continues well into the new decade, with both Hankook and Giti occupying significant market share positions that simply were not feasibly early in the new millennium.
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