The Goodyear Polyglas tire was a bias-belted tire announced in 1967 by Goodyear. "Polyglas" was a registered trademark. [2] The tire combined some characteristics of both bias-ply and radial-ply tires. They had a wider tread than most other tires on the market then and used fiberglass belts.
Conventional tires up to that time featured a bias or cross-ply construction with body cords extending diagonally from bead to bead. The Polyglas tires had a bias construction that added stabilizing circumference belts directly beneath the tread. These fiberglass belts surrounded the polyester cord body, thus the Polyglas name for which Goodyear registered a U.S. trademark #859,703. [3] The construction was a type "domestic performance car fans were familiar with". [3]
Goodyear promoted the fiberglass belt design as having less tread "squirm" as the tire rolls on the road surface and improved traction for acceleration and braking. [3] The polyester sidewalls provided stability for heavy cars at low inflation pressures. The features increased the mileage and enhanced road-holding performance. The objective was to gain the radial tire's longer tread life and a firmer road grip in a bias-belted tire. [3] The Polyglas tires featured a wide footprint. [4]
Goodyear Poluglas tires were available as standard equipment in the late 1960s and early 1970s muscle cars from General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and American Motors. [5] There were also comparable tires from competitors such as the Firestone Sup-R-Belt Wide Oval and Atlas Plycron 2plus2. [6] [7] Goodyear and comparable bias-belted tires began appearing as standard or optional equipment on most 1969-model passenger cars [4] and nearly all 1970 through 1974 models.
The most common version of the Polyglas on muscle cars of that era with raised white lettering. [8] This was one of the first commercially available raised white-lettered tires on the market. Some high-performance cars also featured narrow "redline" sidewalls as standard equipment. [9] Other versions of the Polyglas lineup were offered as blackwall, whitewall, and snow treaded tires. [10] For driving in winter, Polyglass Pathfinder line of tires were available in unique versions for the steering front and rear driving axles along with optional "Safety Spikes" (studs). [11]
The tires were marketed for their longer life as well as in situations where better tires are needed to compensate for the driver and challenging conditions. [12] Television advertisements in 1970 showed that women need Polyglas tires to compensate for their lack of driving ability. [13]
Automakers and consumers in the United States continued with low-cost bias-ply type tires through the early 1970s. [14] The Polyglas tire and its combination competitors were replaced by steel belted radials as original equipment tires after 1975. Increased fuel efficiency and tire mileage overcame the higher price of radial construction. According to a 1976 study, more police departments used steel or fabric radial-ply tires than belted bias-ply and bias or cross-ply tires for their pursuit cars. [15]
Goodyear Polyglas tires are now manufactured for owners of period cars. [16]
A tire or tyre is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over which the wheel travels. Most tires, such as those for automobiles and bicycles, are pneumatically inflated structures, providing a flexible cushion that absorbs shock as the tire rolls over rough features on the surface. Tires provide a footprint, called a contact patch, designed to match the vehicle's weight and the bearing on the surface that it rolls over by exerting a pressure that will avoid deforming the surface.
Michelin, in full Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin SCA, is a French multinational tyre manufacturing company based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes région of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world behind Bridgestone and larger than both Goodyear and Continental. In addition to the Michelin brand, it also owns the Kléber tyres company, Uniroyal-Goodrich Tire Company, SASCAR, Bookatable and Camso brands. Michelin is also notable for its Red and Green travel guides, its roadmaps, the Michelin stars that the Red Guide awards to restaurants for their cooking, and for its company mascot Bibendum, colloquially known as the Michelin Man, who is a humanoid consisting of tyres.
A classic car is typically an automobile 25 years or older; however, definitions vary. A common theme is that of an older car of historical interest is collectible and tends to be restored rather than scrapped, though sometimes age is not a factor. Classic cars are often considered a subset of a broader category of "collector cars," including restored classic cars and newer exotic vehicles. A subset of classic cars are known as antique cars, manufactured before 1980, or vintage cars, manufactured before World War II.
The AMC Javelin is an American front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, two-door hardtop automobile manufactured by American Motors Corporation (AMC) across two generations, 1968 through 1970 and 1971 through 1974 model years. The car was positioned and marketed in the pony car market segment.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is an American multinational tire manufacturer headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Goodyear manufactures tires for passenger vehicles, aviation, commercial trucks, military and police vehicles, motorcycles, RVs, race cars, and heavy off-road machinery. It also licenses the Goodyear brand to bicycle tires manufacturers, returning from a break in production between 1976 and 2015. As of 2017, Goodyear is one of the top four tire manufacturers along with Bridgestone (Japan), Michelin (France), and Continental (Germany).
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is an American tire company founded by Harvey S. Firestone (1868–1938) in 1900 initially to supply solid rubber side-wire tires for fire apparatus, and later, pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles, and the company was a pioneer in the mass production of tires. Harvey S. Firestone had a friendship with Henry Ford, and used this to become the original equipment supplier of Ford Motor Company automobiles, and was also active in the replacement market.
A radial tire is a particular design of vehicular tire. In this design, the cord plies are arranged at 90 degrees to the direction of travel, or radially. Radial tire construction climbed to 100% market share in North America following Consumer Reports finding the superiority of the radial design in 1968, and were standard by 1976.
Whitewall tires or white sidewall (WSW) tires are tires having a stripe or entire sidewall of white rubber. These tires were most commonly used from the early 1900s to around the mid 1980s.
BFGoodrich is an American tire brand. Originally part of the industrial conglomerate Goodrich Corporation, it was acquired in 1990 by the French tire maker Michelin. BFGoodrich was the first American tire manufacturer to make radial tires. It made tires for the then new Winton car from Winton Motor Carriage Company.
The rim is the "outer edge of a wheel, holding the tire". It makes up the outer circular design of the wheel on which the inside edge of the tire is mounted on vehicles such as automobiles. For example, on a bicycle wheel the rim is a large hoop attached to the outer ends of the spokes of the wheel that holds the tire and tube. In cross-section, the rim is deep in the center and shallow at the outer edges, thus forming a "U" shape that supports the bead of the tire casing.
Charles J. Pilliod Jr. was an American business executive and diplomat. He was ambassador to Mexico from 1986 to 1989.
Automotive tires are described by an alphanumeric tire code or tyre code, which is generally molded into the sidewall of the tire. This code specifies the dimensions of the tire, and some of its key limitations, such as load-bearing ability, and maximum speed. Sometimes the inner sidewall contains information not included on the outer sidewall, and vice versa.
Pneumatic tires are manufactured according to relatively standardized processes and machinery, in around 455 tire factories in the world. With over 1 billion tires manufactured worldwide annually, the tire industry is a major consumer of natural rubber. Tire factories start with bulk raw materials such as synthetic rubber, carbon black, and chemicals and produce numerous specialized components that are assembled and cured.
Coker Tire Company is a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based company that manufactures and sells vintage-style Michelin, Firestone, BF Goodrich and Uniroyal bias-ply and radial whitewall tires for collector automobiles. The company was originally a tire and service center founded in 1958 by Harold Coker. He would later give his son Corky Coker the opportunity to manage the antique division, which was a small percentage of the company's earnings. Corky devoted 40 years to growing the antique division of the business, eventually making it the company's primary focus. Corky retired in 2014, and he appointed Wade Kawasaki as President to oversee the operations of six companies and numerous brands under the Coker Group. In November 2018, Corky sold Coker Tire and its parent company, Coker Group, to Irving Place Capital.
Tire uniformity refers to the dynamic mechanical properties of pneumatic tires as strictly defined by a set of measurement standards and test conditions accepted by global tire and car makers.
The Michelin PAX is an automobile run-flat tire system that utilizes a special type of rim and tire to allow temporary use of a wheel if its tire is punctured. The core of Michelin's PAX system is the semi-rigid ring installed onto the rim using special equipment. It provides support to the tire and its sidewall to allow emergency operation at limited speed until such time as the tire can be replaced. Cars that use the system include supercars like the Bugatti Veyron EB 16.4, luxury cars like the Rolls-Royce Phantom, and more common vehicles like the Honda Odyssey and Nissan Quest.
A motorcycle tyre is the outer part of motorcycle wheel, attached to the rim, providing traction, resisting wear, absorbing surface irregularities, and allowing the motorcycle to turn via countersteering. The two tyres' contact patches are the motorcycle's connection to the ground, and so are fundamental to the motorcycle's suspension behaviour, and critically affect safety, braking, fuel economy, noise, and rider comfort.
The Seiberling Rubber Company was an American tire manufacturer for motor vehicles.
The Go package was a factory option that included various performance equipment that was available on several muscle cars manufactured by American Motors Corporation (AMC).
Tire lettering is the practice of putting, or drawing visible letters on the sidewall of an automobile's tires. In modern usage, the lettering is often big car brands or tire brands names, with custom lettering being a much smaller niche of that. It can also refer to other after market customizations to the side wall of the tire, such as the "white wall tire" look, but any color of the spectrum is available now, including "rainbow wall tires".