Giti Tire has extended the scope of its ultra-high performance tyre, introducing the GT Radial SportActive SUV derivative. The manufacturer has made seven 18-19” SUV sizes available initially, across speed indices V-W, section widths from 225 to 255 and series sizes 50 to 60. Giti states that it is targeting SUVs with dynamic performance and powerful engines such as the Audi Q3, Range Rover Evoque and BMW X3.
The GT Radial SportActive became available around a year ago as a new flagship tyre for the brand, distributed in the UK by Micheldever. Towards the end of 2016, Giti Tire held an event for its wholesale partner and a large group of its most successful dealers in Vilamoura, Portugal, with track-based demonstrations of the tyre’s capabilities at Portimao’s Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. GT Radial has leveraged a racing partnership before to market the tyre in the UK; it partnered consumer high performance driving magazine Evo for its popular 2016 series of track day events at the Bedford Autodrome, making its tyres available for amateur racing enthusiasts to try out on vehicles such as the Audi S3, Golf GTI, BMW 340i and Toyota GT86.
The new GT Radial FE1 City tyre for A-C segment urban cars is now available throughout Europe following its launch on Giti Tire’s stand at Reifen 2016. The tyre currently comes in 16 sizes, with rims from 13-16”, section widths from 145 to 195 and series sizes 55 to 80. The tyre was designed by the company’s R&D Centre in Hannover, Germany and features a silhouette of the city of Cologne to mark its European R&D credentials.
Giti Tire has celebrated the 500,000th sale of its GT Radial FE1 with a ‘Golden Tyre’ presented to GT Radial Performance Centre (GTPC), Perry’s Tyres & Exhausts Service of Cinderford, Gloucestershire. The FE1, launched in 2014, is the fastest selling European pattern in Giti Tire’s history. As of September 2016, more than 580,000 units have been sold in the 21 months it has been available.
Giti Tire has appointed Brian McDermott and Daria Sala della Cuna as sales and marketing directors – Europe for passenger car and light truck tyres (PCR) and truck and bus tyres (TBR) respectively. Both directors will work closely with major clients and partners around Europe to increase sales and marketing activities, handle brand strategy, and channel development and product portfolio extensions for the Giti, GT Radial, Primewell and Runway brands, Giti states.
Giti Tire is currently partnering with performance car magazine Evo for a series of track days. The manufacturer states that this “provides an excellent platform” from which to promote its current flagship ultra-high performance product, the GT Radial SportActive. Five events are held at Bedford Autodrome every year. With three track days completed and two more in the diary, including the popular How Fast? on 22 October with F1-style qualifying timed laps and leaderboard, the partnership is revving up.
Launched at Reifen 2016, Giti Tire’s objectives for its new winter van tyre, the GT Radial Maxmiler WT2, included improvements in wet performances and safety within commercial operations, UK managing director Brian McDermott told Tyres & Accessories. At the same time, the manufacturer wanted to maintain good winter performances proven in press tests, and its high mileage in comparison with competitors. “The tyre achieved all the above targets,” he said.
With Micheldever reporting that 2016 got off to a good start for the company, Tyres & Accessories met with wholesale director Alan Baldwin in order to find out more about the company’s 4×4/SUV tyre business, which was recently boosted by the launch of 4site4x4tyres.co.uk.
A customer of GT Radial Performance Centre (GTPC), Cranbrook Tyre & Exhaust Centre has been named the winner of the brand’s biggest UK consumer competition to date.
Giti Tire has introduced nine new sizes to the GT Radial Champiro FE1 range. Positioned as an all-round premium passenger car tyre for the performance C and D vehicle segments (including such bestsellers as the Volkswagen Golf, Peugeot 308 and Kia C’eed) the tyre now has more than 95 per cent coverage of its target sector. Launched in 2014, Giti expects the tyre to become one of its biggest sellers.
At the end of 2014 Tyres & Accessories described the UK passenger car tyre market as being very slightly down in terms of volume despite the fact that many had expected growth (see “Everything pointed to UK tyre market growth in 2014”, Tyres & Accessories December 2014). Giti’s analysis puts the market nominally up – that is less than 0.1 per cent – so the end result is the same, no growth. With this in mind, in January we met with Giti Tire UK managing director Brian McDermott at the company’s Cheshire headquarters in order to understand more about the company’s recent developmen
Giti Tire has thanked the GT Radial Performance Centres (GTPCs) for their support of October’s TyreSafe Tyre Safety Month. The company said that many sites in the network of retailers had undertaken an “exceptional level of activities”. Exemplifying this were Westgate Tyres in Morecambe and Ackworth Autoserv in Pontefract, which both held ladies’ safety days, […]
Giti Tire and exclusive distributor Micheldever Tyre Services (MTS) have completed a programme of 12 customer roadshows throughout the UK. Showcasing GT Radial Performance Centres (GTPC), the events, which took place between August to October, were attended by more than 80 new and existing GTPC partners, the manufacturer states.
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.
A quartet of riders from GT Radial are to tackle the Circuit Bugatti in the Le Mans 24 Hour Cycle Race. Brian McDermott, country manager UK for Giti Tire, manufacturer of GT Radial; Ellis Hadley, senior test engineer; Martin Gibson, senior test engineer; and Bertrand Saint-Supery, OEM EU technical director make up the team who will be training hard and raising funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care.
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