Falken’s range of vintage tyre sizes with modern rubber compounds will be displayed later this week at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. Visitors to the UK’s biggest classic car event, the NEC Classic Motor Show on 11-13 November, will see the company’s Sincera range displayed on different stands’ classic car displays. Falken says interest in smaller vintage sizes of its Sincera tyre has recently “surged”.
New social network site Google+ expanded its social net to include brands and companies this week, and Falken Tire Corp. staked a claim to being the first tyre company to inhabit the online space, reports Tire Review. The company has already garnered 320,000 “Likes” on its Facebook page, and sees the addition of Google+ as “an extension of its consumer allegiance strategy.” The brand has been particularly vocal about its use of social networks in conjunction with motorsport activities to such an end this year.
Falken Tire has announced that it will continue to expand its motorsport activities “aggressively” in 2012. Teams supported by the manufacturer won two American Le Mans Series races in the challenging GT class during the 2011 season and claimed a second consecutive Championship in the Formula Drift series. “Falken vigorously supports its motorsports involvement with numerous marketing strategies,” explained Andrew Hoit, Falken’s vice president of marketing. The brand demonstrated its marketing strategy in blending motorsport involvement and social networking activity at events in Europe too, such as its use of Facebook during the 24 Hours at the Nürburgring, reported by Tyres & Accessories in June.
Team Falken driver Matt Carter has won the 2011 British Drift Championship Super Pro class after a sixth place finish in Sunderland. The Falken team took second place in the Constructors Standings, missing out on first place by two points.
Perodua and wheel and design house Wolfrace have teamed up to create the new Myvi Wolfrace Design Concept. The car combines classic Myvi specification with the striking styling of Wolfrace to produce a car that aims to be both affordable and fashionable.
Often the tyre industry overlooks the needs of classic car drivers. Not so Falken, who is targeting this particular market with its Sincera SN807. This range of 10 to 14-inch tyres features “appropriate aspect ratios for classic cars”, and the Falken Europe says it offers “a competitively priced period-look tread with contemporary radial construction technology.”
Micheldever Tyre Services has told tyrepress.com/Tyres & Accessories that the company is “absolutely delighted” to be nominated for the 2011 TAFF Wholesale Awards. A spokesman for Micheldever firmly stated its appreciation: “We are very grateful for the support of our customers in recognising our efforts and backing this with a nomination in the Wholesaler Category.
In what has been described as a tyre “industry first,” Micheldever Tyre Services/Protyre has applied the Motor Codes online customer ratings tool, displaying up-to-the-minute satisfaction scores and real-time motorist feedback across all 53 Protyre outlets.
Powered by data collected through the Motor Codes online survey – a measure of service satisfaction amongst customers of its garages throughout the UK – the ratings widget has been developed as part of a recent refresh of the car service and repair regulator’s website. It appears against all Motor Codes garages, clearly visible to motorists using its Garage Finder tool to search for a reliable business.
The British Drift Championship’s third round at the Teesside Autodrome saw two major drifting tyre brands competing for top spots in the championship standings. Title sponsors of the series Maxxis supported third-placed drifter Paul Smith, moving him up to fifth in the Super Professional Championship, while the Falken brand supported Matt Carter claimed his third consecutive second place podium position to maintain his lead at the top, and Team Green Falken’s domination of the Team Championship.
Falken Tire Corporation, the US based subsidiary of Sumitomo Rubber Industries, has appointed Vivien Winneke its director of human resources. Commenting on Ms Winneke’s new role, company president and CEO Richard Smallwood said: “As Falken continues its rapid ascent in sales, it becomes increasingly important to find and recruit talented individuals who can support that growth. This rapid expansion of personnel, along with increasingly complex labour laws, make human resources one of the company’s cornerstones that advocates our cultural belief of plan ahead to maximise opportunities and manage risks.”
Falken Tyres recently took a group of top Micheldever tyre dealers to the world renowned Nurburgring 24 hour race, an event that is followed by hundreds of thousands around the world. Micheldever’s guests enjoyed VIP hospitality as they were entertained in the Mercedes Benz suite over the weekend by Falken.
With a huge contingency of auto- and tyre manufacturers and a crowd estimated to be close to a quarter of a million, this year’s ADAC Nürburgring 24 hour race was won by Manthey-Racing – the works team’s fifth in the last six years – as Marc Lieb, Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Lucas Luhr drove the team’s Porsche 911 GT3 RSR to victory, completing a record 156 laps (3958.968km) of the Nordschleife. Tyre manufacturer and main sponsor of the event, Falken Tyre Europe – a company inaugurated in 2009 to distribute the Sumitomo-manufactured brand in the continent – also ran a highly competitive Porsche 911 GT3 R with its own team in the event, and while a change of engine and gearbox made for ultimate disappointment in terms of its finishing position, persistent top ten lap times meant the team occupied positions between 176 and 14 during the course of the 24 hours, eventually finishing 48th. Falken also supplied specially developed tyres to its eponymously named team.
For an eighth consecutive year, Michelin has come up trumps in J.D. Power Asia Pacific’s survey of customer satisfaction amongst winter tyre users in Japan. The French tyre maker has held this distinction in every Japan Winter Tire Customer Satisfaction Index Study since the first was held seven years ago; in 2011 it performed “particularly well” in all six tested factors and scored 653 points out of a possible 1,000; second-placed brand Bridgestone was, with 609 points, also ranked above the industry average of 583 points. Trailing in last place for customer satisfaction in the eight-brand study was Falken, with 515 points.
Back in January, the Falken Motorsport Team announced that it would return to the Nürburgring 24 Hour race on 25-26 June running a GT3 R specification Porsche 911, in a break from its tradition of Japanese sports cars. Peter Dumbreck, will be racing the car in this year’s 24 Hours, also breaking from Japanese manufactured cars, exemplified by his Nissan GTR drive in this year’s GT1 World Championship, though he notes that he has “driven a few Porsches earlier in my career including the Alzen 996 Turbo and 996 and 997 Cup cars in the Carrera Cup six or seven years ago. I’ve also driven an older RSR at the Nurburging in 2005”. Previewing the event for Falken, Dumbreck talked about the differences between driving Porsche models, such as the 997, and Nissan’s GTR, including his impressions of the Falken tyre specifications for the former, on which they have been tested.
Falken has released a statement from its finance and admin director T. Ikeuchi, reporting that its Shirakawa factory has “stopped daily manufacturing operations due to the immediate black out, and because the factory building and equipments installed have been found partly damaged. Ikeuchi also stated that the company is “investigating the extent of the damages”, intending to recommence production as soon as possible. In addition, Ikeuchi said that all “Sumitomo Rubber Industries group employees and their families have been confirmed uninjured”.
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