Last month saw the official European launch of Fulda’s new Exelero. But it didn’t stop there. The manufacturer not only presented a new UHP tyre to European press and dealers, but also a new car, the Fulda Maybach Exelero.

Sales of the Fulda brand reached 9 million pieces in 2004, of which approximately 5 million were sold in Germany and the remainder in other parts of Europe. The factory, based in the German city Fulda, produced 7 million tyres in 2004, but they weren’t all for the Fulda brand. The plant focuses on high end products, including runflats, UHP tyres and products for the SUV sector, it also produces tyres for other Goodyear brands.

But back to the much anticipated ‘Fulda Maybach Exelero’ project. Just imagine a vehicle that combines the elegance and quality of a high-end limousine with the powerful agility of a sports coupé. Picture a vehicle with a basic weight of over 2.66 tonnes and the dimensions of a light truck that can achieve a maximum speed of over 350 km/h. Now visualise an ultra-high performance tyre that not only copes with the aforementioned weight, the dimensions and the speed, but also makes the vehicle safe, stable and comfortable. Does such a vehicle and tyre exist? It does now.

Other manufacturers develop a tyre for a car, Fulda reversed he norm and developed a car for the tyres. This is a symbol, according to Fulda’s MD Bernd Hoffmann, that his brand is unique from all others – in the market as well as in the Goodyear family.
Fulda has been making car tyres for the past 100 years, and has tested and marketed its products on several special vehicles throughout this time. Luxury high-speed buses, a series of show trucks, racing cars, all have been used to test and advertise the manufacturers tyres. In the 1930s the streamlined Maybach SW38 was used. The car could conduct tyre tests at speeds of over 200 km/h. Unfortunately it did not last for long, the test car which was designed in 1938 and produced in 1939 disappeared during the war years and was never seen again.

Sixty-six years later Fulda has introduced a high-tech tyre to the market. The most extreme dimension in the tyre’s portfolio is the 315/25 ZR 23, licensed for speeds of more than 350 km/h. As a series tyre, and not a racing tyre, a high-speed vehicle was needed for the launch and not a racing car. Lucky then that one of the most exclusive German vehicle makes was revived a few years ago and a joint project was organised, just like in the old days.

The contacts were made thanks to René Staud, a world-class car photographer and an outstanding ‘networker’ at DaimlerChrysler and Fulda Reifen. An agreement was reached following several discussions with Leon Hustinx, Maybach’s director sales and marketing – Maybach would build a car for Fulda. The objective was to position the vehicle as an ambassador for the new ultra high performance tyre line Exelero.
The project had quite a team behind it. Two independent design professors and four of their students, together with the design professionals from DaimlerChrysler and Fulda worked on the car. After nine months of design proposals one of the students’ designs was chosen.

Transforming a limousine, the Maybach 57 (the basis for the Exelero) into a coupé is an extremely complicated process. When considering the engine alternatives, it soon became clear that the basic twelve-cylinder engine used in the Maybach limousines would not achieve the desired maximum speed of around 350 km/h despite the Biturbo charger. Here, the Mercedes Car Group leapt into the breach. The engine specialists in Untertürkheim, the place where all basic engines are developed, provided some much needed support to the project. After much tweaking of the Maybach type 12 engine, the cubic capacity was increased from 5.6 to 5.9 litres and the turbo charge optimised. The result was convincing: on the test bed almost 700 hp and at least 1,000 newton metres of torque were recorded, sufficient to achieve the maximum target speed of 350 km/h.

The final test measurements at the end of April/beginning of May 2005 on the high speed Motodrom Nardo confirmed the team’s hard work and success, the car reached a top speed of 351.45 km/h – a world record for limousines on standard tyres. The development of the project, from the initial Fulda concept to the delivery of the Maybach Exelero sports coupé, in just 25 months also achieved another world record.

Delivering to the discerning consumer

State-of-the-art technology, comfort, convenience, and all at a good price – the end consumer knows what it wants and is becoming increasingly discerning. And because of this those industries that support the vehicle manufacturers are increasingly being called upon to respond to manufacturing trends towards more capacity, higher horse power and better performance characteristics by providing technically compatible, performance-orientated product components. This includes the tyre industry. Predictions for the ultra high performance tyre segment show a 60 per cent sales increase for V, W and Y speed categories between 2003 and 2008.

Fulda’s new Exelero is a prime example of the tyre technology currently being placed in the path of today’s quality-sensitive consumer group. The product is a result of equally intensive and complex research and development claims the manufacturer. The motivation behind such R&D was always to enhance the performance of existing summer tyre products, a goal Fulda believes it has achieved.

Refined and perfected for the requirements of sporty drivers, the characteristics of the new Exelero have impressed Germany’s Technical Board of Control (TÜV Süd). The product was awarded the TÜV test symbol following detailed tyre tests and a quality audit of Fulda’s production processes. In doing so the TÜV Süd has, for the first time, recognised the research and development undertaken by a tyre manufacturer on the basis of an independent testing and certification process.

The Exelero is also the result of intensive market research. Customer surveys conducted by Fulda Reifen revealed that the majority of motorists want tyres with optimised braking characteristics on wet road surfaces, good handling, and low noise build-up. As a result of this research a special wet grip compound was developed, and its low elasticity improves grip level providing shorter braking distances, especially on wet road surfaces. In principle a tyre tread with low elasticity produces a more effective grip on the road surface than a compound with higher elasticity and the contact between the tyre and road surface is guaranteed for a longer period.

In addition, the new high performance carcass offers improved handling, on both dry and wet road surfaces. Developed to meet the requirements of high performance and sports cars, the tyre manufacturer has placed special emphasis on the tyres’ high stability and response behaviour. The carcass is less susceptible to deformation during heavy braking manoeuvres and on sharp bends and thus not only improves the grip but also the vehicle’s steering behaviour.
With the newly developed and so-called unique ‘DualShift Method’ the engineers have been able to clearly reduce the Exelero’s noise emissions. The ‘DualShift Method’ consists of two elements; the special configuration of various tread block sizes in the shoulder section and centre leads to an audible reduction in the sound frequency peaks. Six circumferential longitudinal grooves are also individually set, to further improve driving comfort and low noise build-up.

Fulda’s new UHP product is currently being rolled out to the trade and will eventually be available in 33 sizes and 39 versions ranging from 15 to 23 inches (55 to 25 series), 25 sizes are already available in the UK. Fulda is putting 13 of the sizes into series production for the first time.