When Sydney Stapleton set up his business in a simple shop parade at 195 High Street, Watford in 1937 he was one of a number of businessmen taking advantage of the growing market for tyres. Growing his business through the 1950s and ‘60s, his personal renown as one of the industry’s most dynamic characters and an entrepreneur of considerable foresight followed. The location of its headquarters in the vicinity of the M1 is testament to this – in the 1960s Stapleton’s supplied replacement earthmover tyres used to build the Watford-Milton Keynes stretch of the motorway.