Alliance Tire Americas has strengthened its aftermarket business with two new key appointments. Allen Lyons has been named vice-president of Aftermarket Sales, West and Canada, and that Seth Walters has been promoted to vice-president of Aftermarket Sales, East.
Two ‘top performers’ will take pride of place at the Alliance Tire Group stand during The Tire Cologne – the Alliance A-389VF-IMP for agricultural transports and the Galaxy LDSR 300, a tyre specially developed and built for wheel loaders operated under most adverse conditions. ATG comments that both tyres offer “better value” and optimum solutions for their respective uses.
On 23 April Alliance Tire Group (ATG) launched its first radial construction OTR tyre range under its Galaxy brand. The range, which was launched at the Intermat exhibition in Paris includes the HTSR 400 E4 and L4 for dump trucks; the LDSR 300 E3 and L3 for wheel loaders; and the MGSR 200 G2 for graders used on uneven surfaces.
Following on from the launch at last year’s SIMA show of the Agriflex+ 389 VF, Alliance Tire Group (ATG) released further agricultural tyre lines during 2017, including the Alliance 128. The Yokohama Rubber-owned tyre maker also announced its intention to intensify its activities with OEM customers and has appointed a dedicated original equipment team.
After being named Truck & Agricultural Tyre Supplier of The Year in both 2015 and 2016, last year Kirkby Tyres went home from the NTDA Tyre Industry Awards ceremony in October with the trophy for Tyre Wholesaler of the Year. The 2017 award was for Kirkby perhaps the crowning moment in a year that saw its original equipment and OE2 business continue to grow as well as work progress on its warehousing expansion programme. This expansion will be completed during the course of 2018 and is expected to enhance Kirkby’s operations. The wholesaler also anticipates an increase in its OE/OE2 activities and is introducing several other important agricultural products.
Six dimensions of the Alliance 389VF flotation tyre for trailers, sprayers and spreaders are now available, and Alliance Tire Group reports two additional sizes are now under development. These two sizes are VF 650/60R26.5, VF 800/60R32.
Kirkby Tyres’ 2017 expansion programme will see its first warehouse completed in December 2017, with the 80,000sqft of new floor space, across nine additional new warehouses, fully operational by March 2018. In total, Kirkby will fit in 2,500 additional tyre racking units, enabling 8.9m high tyre storage facilities. The wholesaler will also add 10 more loading bays to its operation. In order to realise this expansion, Kirkby purchased three acres of land adjacent to its Speke headquarters, allowing it to increase its stock capacity and further improve its logistical operations, and increasing its total footprint to approximately nine acres. Kirkby added that the expansion would require more local personnel to be employed, and enable the company to offer customers a wider range of brands, sizes and applications.
No I am not talking about the unqualifiable rumours that Doublestar made an offer of up to 250 million euros for Zenises. Rather, that in the first week of September we learnt that Doublestar’s proposed acquisition of Kumho was collapsing before the firm’s eyes after the Qingdao-Chinese tyre manufacturer asked for a double-digit discount. And it is also worth considering what all this means for the wider tyre manufacturing sector.
An all-new Alliance Tire Group website has gone live. The www.atgtire.com site has a new look and functionalities, and the Yokohama Rubber-owned tyre maker states that it “provides visitors with a better and more interactive way to discover the full range of Alliance and Galaxy products.” Geo-specific homepages within the site cater to the different regions where Alliance Tire Group operates, and content and brochures are available in a total of eight languages – English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Russian.
In addition to its current shirt sponsorship with Chelsea Football Club, Yokohama Rubber has gained jersey sleeve sponsorship for the 2017-18 season. In addition to the Yokohama Tyres logo prominently featured across the chest of the Chelsea FC jersey these past two seasons, the new jerseys worn by players during Premier League, FA Cup and Carabao Cup matches will feature the logo of the company’s recently-acquired Alliance Tyres brand on the jersey’s left sleeve. The new jersey made its debut at Chelsea’s pre-season match with Arsenal at the ‘Bird’s Nest’ in Beijing, China on 22 July.
As a tyre wholesaler specialising in commercial tyre segments, Kirkby Tyres has progressively expanded its range of OTR tyres and wheels; the company states that its range of radial and bias tyres for earthmovers and construction vehicles is now “enormous and varied”. The wholesaler has distribution partnerships with several rising manufacturers, such as Alliance, BKT, and Double Coin, which have supported Kirkby’s competitive pricing strategy.
According to one Japanese publication, Yokohama Rubber will launch a second car tyre line in Europe this year under the Alliance brand name. The Nikkei Asian Review reports that the Alliance-branded passenger car tyres will be manufactured in Japan and that European retailers – it names the UK, France, Germany and Spain as four target markets – may have stocks of the tyres by May 2017.
A new size has joined the Alliance 380 range. Alliance Tire Group has unveiled a size 800/60R32 version of the flotation radial at the SIMA show in France. The new product is aimed at trailers, tankers, sprayers and loaders.
The Alliance Tire Group (ATG) claims a world first with the launch of its Alliance 389 VF, a flotation tyre featuring VF, or very high flexion, technology. The off-road tyre specialist states that the 389 VF is the first product to bring together the reduced soil pressure offered by flotation tyres and the superior load carrying/tyre pressure combination of a VF design.
The largest stock of agricultural tyres in the UK can be found at Kirkby Tyres. More than 30,000 agricultural products – a range covering more than 600 tread patterns, over 800 sizes and at least 2,500 agricultural SKUs – are currently housed in the wholesaler’s warehouses in Liverpool and Dublin. Marketing manager Adam Bromilow tells to Tyres & Accessories that Kirkby’s agricultural range is “unrivalled” in the UK and Ireland, and it is this availability (Kirkby recently doubled the size of its Liverpool facility), combined with a policy of free next day delivery that is supported by a new warehouse management system, that led to Kirkby Tyres being voted Truck and Agricultural Tyre Supplier of the Year for a second consecutive year at the 2016 Tyre Industry Awards.
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