Women in the United States are being encouraged to buy local; Goodyear Tire & Rubber has featured twice in the ‘America’s Best in Automotive’ category of this year’s Women’s Choice Award. The company was selected as best Premium Tire Brand, Tire Retailer and Auto Service Retailer.
The news about Pirelli’s 2014 Calendar is that it isn’t. It isn’t a 2014 calendar, that is. The Italian company reported today that to celebrate the “milestone anniversary” of the Cal’s half-century, it decided not to produce a 2014 Calendar. Instead, it is releasing the previously unpublished 1986 Pirelli Calendar created by Helmut Newton, which until now has been kept under wraps in the company’s archives.
The Tokyo Motor Show 2013 opens to the public on 23 November, and during the press days ahead of the official start of the exhibition Bridgestone unveiled its second generation ‘air free’ concept tyre. The manufacturer says the latest improvements to the air free concept bring it one step closer to developing a viable, commercially available non-pneumatic tyre; the second generation concept features improved load-bearing capabilities plus a more ‘environmental’ design and driving performance.
Continental has opened its new ContiLifeCycle Plant at its Hanover-Stöcken facility alongside the launch of its Technology Center Campus. With various other retreading and technology centres around the world, the facilities are characterised as nuclei for Conti’s global technological operations; Conti both sends “out into the world” its technological innovations from the Campus, in the words of Tire Division head and Executive Board member, Nikolai Setzer, and brings in specialists and their expertise from global markets to help develop technology for different markets. The LifeCycle Plant is thought to be the most technologically advanced retreading facility in the world, integrating into the manufacturing processes improved rubber recycling capabilities.
This weekend’s F1 round at Brazil’s Interlagos circuit has been described by Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery and racing manager Mario Isola as the “end of an era”. The practice and race events for the Formula 1 Grande Prêmio Petrobras do Brasil 2013 at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace will be the last hurrah for the normally-aspirated engine cars.
Toyo’s most recent SUV tyre, the Proxes T1 Sport SUV, is designed to add a quieter ride and improved wet performance over the capabilities of the technology contained in the Proxes S/T. Toyo says the tyre is perfect for fitment to popular vehicles such as the Range Rover, BMW X5, Porsche Cayenne and Mercedes ML and others within this increasingly popular segment.
With the sport still growing in the UK and trying to attract new talent, the attractiveness of the series to tyre suppliers is equally important. Title sponsor of the British Drift Championship and supplier to one of its major teams Japspeeed, Maxxis explains how it is helping the sport to thrive and grow as part of the UK motorsport calendar.
As the Chinese government announced the modernization of its governance system – including further acknowledge of the role market forces play in its development – the minister responsible for the tyre industry joined other dignitaries in opening Reifen China 2013 in Shanghai today. Early visitor numbers are not yet available, but there are anecdotal indications that the show is on-track to achieve is pre-exhibition goals in terms of both visitor and exhibitor numbers. The show’s organisers also launched RubberTech Europe 2014 preparations on opening day (more on this below).
Following high profile controversies in major 2013 series, are the pressures placed on premium brand tyre manufacturers becoming too much to handle? Or are the pressures and the expensive compromises more than justified by the marketing and branding gains yielded from being the exclusive supplier of globally recognised motorsport?
It’s neither a traditional tyre, nor is it a rubber track – the latest agricultural product from Mitas, the PneuTrac, is described by its creator as “bringing together the best of both worlds.” The tyre concept displayed at the Mitas booth during Agritechnica 2013, combines a traditional pneumatic tyre with a rubber track – and the result, says Mitas, is a 53 per cent larger footprint compared with a standard tyre.
Bridgestone Europe will introduce the Bridgestone brand into the European agricultural tyre market, targeting the growing high-end segment. The brand, which will focus on meeting the special needs of the largest, most powerful agricultural vehicles and equipment according to Bridgestone, will be previewed at Agritechnica in Hanover this week (12-16 November 2013), while the company will launch its first product during May 2014’s Reifen show in Essen, Germany, making it available for sale in Europe during the second half of the year.
Exclusive tyre supplier Bridgestone has congratulated Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez on becoming only the second ever rookie winner of the MotoGP World Championship, after his third place finish was enough to beat the other podium finishers Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa at Valencia Circuito Ricardo Tormo.
Motor Wheel Service Distribution (MWSD) and Wheels India have signed a three-year extension to the European supply agreement of xlite forged aluminium wheels, having rolled out the product on the European market since 2011. The xlite brand became global after an exclusive 10-year trademark agreement between MWSD and Wheels India.
Toyo’s Proxes R888, the Japanese manufacturer’s road-legal competition tyre, has been involved in a wide variety of series this year, showing its versatility and targeting fitments suited to the brand’s strategic placement.
Bridgestone Corporation has published a notice on its Japanese website regarding the company’s largest tyre recall since tyres first became subject to product recalling in Japan almost ten years ago. The recall covers 1,204,707 truck and bus tyres produced at Bridgestone’s Tochigi plant between January 2012 and August 2013.
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