Car Bibles: One man's comprehensive guide to oil, brakes, tires, and more.
posted by Upton O'Good on Jul 11, 2007 - 21 comments

A good rant about "delusional advertising" but if you have 10 minutes to TOTALLY waste, click on the "PLAY" button for Pirelli's amazing(ly silly) short film featuring The Malkovich as a priest using four tires and a cross to fight a demonic Naomi Campbell over the soul of a sports car.
posted by wendell on May 8, 2006 - 55 comments

In 1844, Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber. In 1845, Robert William Thomson invented and patented the first vulcanized pneumatic tire, although his design was too costly to be practical. John Dunlop patented his own design for pneumatic bicycle tires in 1888, and this design was less expensive to produce than Thomson’s, and was widely adopted. André Michelin attempted to make the first pneumatic automobile tire in 1895. Although his initial design was not successful, he persevered, and the company he formed with his brother Edouard flourished. And although the tire has continued to evolve, its basic form -- that of a torus filled with pressurized air -- has remained unchanged for 160 years.

While pneumatic tires provide a ride that is both comfortable and safe, the fact that they are filled with air creates some obvious problems. But what if you could make a tire that had the ride characteristics of a pneumatic but was not, strictly speaking, a pneumatic tire? In an interesting attempt to "reinvent the wheel," Michelin has developed an airless tire they are calling the "Tweel". This press release has the standard yadda yadda you would expect with any new product announcement, but these pictures on a third party site demonstrate what a radical idea the "tire without air" really is.
posted by mosk on Nov 8, 2005 - 37 comments

Bibendum (AKA The Michelin Man), or how an anthropomorphic pile of tires became one of the world's most recognizable corporate symbols.
posted by MrBaliHai on Apr 13, 2003 - 19 comments

Michelin plans to embed trackable microchips in tires. The US tire manufacturer has begun testing electronic transponders that are "strictly for identification and tracking. " Congress passed the TREAD Act (Transportation, Recall, Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation) in response to the massive recall of Firestone tires on Ford Explorers and requires tire makers to more closely track their tires. Is this a legitimate use of technology, or does it present another opportunity to erode privacy? [Via /.]
posted by maniactown on Jan 22, 2003 - 24 comments