The first pneumatic tire was created by Robert William Thomson. It was 1844 when a railroad engineer at the age of 22 came up with the idea for a pneumatic tire. Here is what the patent, registered in London, No. 10990, June 10, 1846, says:
“The meaning of my invention consists in the application of elastic surfaces around the carriage rims of the wheels, with the object of reducing the forces which pull the carriages, thereby facilitating the movements. Also, the noise generated by the wheels will be reduced. The patent provides instructions for the invention as well as recommended materials for fabrication.”
André and Edouard Michelin were the first users of tires on cars, applying their experience gained from making bicycle tires. Their promise to provide tires for the 1895 Paris-Bordeaux motor-races was fulfilled with flying colors.
As mentioned before, the history of tire development began simply with a regular tube put on the rim of the wheel. This was an important step, but such a tire was extremely unreliable. To protect the tube, several layers of sailcloth were wrapped around it, it was rubberized for greater strength. That’s how a tire carcass was made. Such tires were referred to as single-tube tires.
Starting in 1898, clincher tires became widespread. They had a frame on the circle, soft sides. Such car tires were used until about 1910.
In the 1920s, the demand for quick-release wheel fasteners to bolt-on chamfers began to increase, making it possible to quickly replace a tire with a wheel.
During World War I, developers began to invent tires for buses and trucks. The pioneers in this direction were the United States. Virtually all cars in the world by 1925, we’re already equipped with pneumatic tires, except for special types of trucks.
Many manufacturing companies exist to this day, such as Firestone and BFGoodrich in the United States, Pirelli in Italy, Continental and Metzler in Germany, Dunlop in England, Michelin in France.
In the 1950s in France, Michelin introduces a winning innovation to the world of tires, this is a rigid rim assembled from layers of metal cord. The cords covered the tire radially instead of diagonally, which is why they dubbed them radial tires. Naturally, this resulted in twice the performance.
Initially, the tires were almost a perfect circle in cross-section. But later, in the 1960s, the height to width of the profile underwent a significant change.
The 1970s were the time of a coup from diagonal tires to radial tires, a sensation in the world of motorists. Such luxury was unimaginable 20 years ago. Driving safety increased enormously and fuel consumption dropped dramatically.
The battle for quality went further. And many more brands were born in the gave birth to Marshal tires, the company, which succeeded in the use of better materials, reduced weight of rubber in the carcass, lower layers in the carcass, increased strength of the cord, the use of combined and relief tread patterns, improved correlation between the rubber and the cord. Besides, manufacturers are looking for the secrets of increasing service life, acceptable loads, simplification of production methods, improvement of road safety.
Today the consumer gives preference to the radial tubeless single-layer metal cord tire.
