The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is an American tire company founded by Harvey Firestone in 1900 to supply pneumatic tires for wheelbarrows, buggies, and other forms of wheel transportation that are common today. Firestone soon saw great potential to market tires for cars, and the company was a pioneer in mass production of tires. Harvey Firestone has a personal friendship with Henry Ford, and uses this to be a genuine Ford Motor Company vehicle supplier, and is also active in the replacement market.
In 1988, the company was sold to Bridgestone Corporation of Japan.
Video Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
History
Start-to-mid-20th century
Firestone was originally based in Akron, Ohio, also the hometown of the company, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and two other middle competitors, General Tire and Rubber and BF Goodrich. Established on August 3, 1900, the company started operations with 12 employees. Together, Firestone and Goodyear are the largest automotive tire suppliers in North America for over 75 years. In 1906, Henry Ford chose Firestone to supply tires for his model car.
In 1918 Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Canada were established in Hamilton, Ontario, and the first Canadian tires were launched on September 15, 1922. During the 1920s, Firestone produced Oldfield tires, named after the Barney Oldfield racer..
In 1926, the company opened one of the largest rubber plantations in the world in Liberia, West Africa, covering over one million hectares (1,560 square meters, 4,050 km 2 ). Also that year, the company opened its first Firestone Complete Auto Care store (Firestone Complete Auto Care is a Firestone division that offers automotive maintenance and repairs).
In 1927, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone traveled to southern California to choose a location for their new factory. Friends say Ford wants to be near the ocean and choose Long Beach and suggest Firestone go to the South Gate. The small community in the southeastern city center of Los Angeles was largely agricultural at the time and Firestone discovered 40 hectares (16 hectares) of oilfields for its new factory plant. The Architects Curlett and Beelman created a spectacular four-story Italianate complex, with its own power plant and a beautiful polychrome mural by Gladding, McBean describing the tire and rubber manufacturing process. A year after the factory opened in 1928, it swelled in size, and grew to nearly one million square feet (23 acres; 9.3 acres) in 1954. The city grew up around Firestone, the main street named Harvey, and Los Angeles into the tire market number one in the country. In the mid-1970s, Ford and GM experienced massive layoffs when Firestone and other manufacturers opened new factories in non-union locations such as Wilson, North Carolina. After massive downsizing, finally at the South Gate came in 1980 when 1,300 workers were laid off and the factory closed. East Los Angeles College has proposed a new satellite campus on the site.
In 1928, the company built a factory in Brentford, England, an old Art Deco landmark on the main route into town; this closed in 1979.
In 1936, the company opened a factory in Memphis, Tennessee. With a workforce of over 3,000 employees, the Memphis plant is the largest tire manufacturer in corporate operations worldwide. On July 1, 1963, the company celebrated the production of 100 million tires in Memphis. The factory closed in 1982.
During World War II, the company was requested by the US Government to make artillery shells, aluminum vats for food transport, and rubber military products; Firestone was ranked 55th among US companies in the value of wartime military production contracts. In the 1940s, Firestone was given a defense contract to manufacture plastic helmet liners; while manufactured by Westinghouse Electric, they still make enough amount for M1 Helmet.
In 1951, Firestone was given a defense contract for the Corporal MGM-5 missile. Firestone was awarded a total of $ 6,888,796 for the first 200 units. Known as the "Embryo of the Army," it is a surface-to-surface missile that can deliver high explosive warheads up to 75 nautical miles (140 km). It was later modified to carry nuclear loads for use in the Cold War feud events in Eastern Europe. Built in southern California, the missile was replaced in 1962 by the Sergeant MGM-29 system.
In 1961, Firestone acquired Dayton Tire division of Dayco Corporation.
Firestone moved their Corporate office to downtown Nashville in October 2017.
Restructuring and sale to Bridgestone
In late 1979, Firestone brought in John Nevin, the former head of Zenith Electronics, as president to save the bleeding company from total destruction. That's over a billion dollars in debt at the time, and loses $ 250 million annually. Nevin closed nine of seventeen company factories, including six in a day, and moved the company from his ancestral home in Akron to Chicago. He separates businesses unrelated to tires, including Firestone Country Club; it is considered a deliberate plan to increase stock prices, and it pays off.
In 1988, after discussions with Pirelli, Nevin negotiated the company's sale to Japanese company Bridgestone, which was able to buy the company less than a decade earlier. The combined operation of Bridgestone/Firestone North American is now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company celebrated its 20th anniversary of merger in 2008, and renamed its tire division to Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, LLC. In 2012, Bridgestone Americas opened a $ 100 million technical center in Akron.
In addition to tires, some companies and divisions operate under the Firestone brand in its name. These companies include Firestone Building Products, LLC, Firestone Industrial Products, LLC, Firestone Complete Auto Care, Firestone Natural Rubber Company, and Firestone Specialty Products. Firestone Building Products and Firestone Industrial Products are headquartered in Indianapolis and operate in 23 US states and ten countries, with 11,000 employees worldwide; Its annual sales exceed $ 2.5 billion.
In 1972, Firestone received a ten year "imported" concession by the Kenyan government to secure Firestone investments in a domestic tire plant, which gave it a virtual monopoly. This includes general prices and foreign exchange controls. When the 10-year period ended in 1979, Firestone retaliated by increasing production, making the entry less attractive. The headquarters finally canceled the expansion and the negotiations failed to cause no further investment.
Maps Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
In motorsport
The Indianapolis 500 race car was won in 1911 by a car running Firestone tires, as did all the winners of the race from 1920 to 1966. The company also provided the tires for Formula One from 1950 to 1974. Citing the cost increase as the cause, Firestone announced its withdrawal from professional motorsport in August 1974 with the exception of Formula 5000 and Formula One. This change is expected to reduce Firestone's annual racing testing budget from between $ 6 and $ 8 million to about $ 500,000. Shortly afterwards, Firestone extended this to a complete withdrawal at the end of the 1974 season. Manufacturers returned in 1995 to the CART series with technical assistance from Bridgestone. Goodyear retired after 1999, leaving Firestone as the sole supplier of the IndyCar Series in 2017.
Enterprise issues
Great American streetcar scandal
In 1950, Firestone along with General Motors and Standard Oil, were charged and convicted of a criminal conspiracy for their part in the Great American streetcar scandal. The scandal includes buying a tram system across the United States and dismantling and replacing it with a bus.
Firestone 500 split site issue
Radial tires were introduced into the US market by rivals Goodrich and Michelin in the late 1960s, and Firestone did not have their own radial tires. The first radial tire developed and manufactured by Firestone was the poorly-lit Firestone 500 Radial. New tire manufacturing is done on equipment designed to produce bias-ply tires.
During the 1970s, Firestone underwent major problems with the Firestone 500 radials. Firestone 500 steel rolls began to show signs of separation of the site at high speed. Although the cause has never been proven, it is believed that the failure of the cement bond, used by Firestone to hold the tire tread to the tire, may have allowed water to penetrate the tire which in turn may cause the internal steel wire to corrode. In March 1978, the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency (NHTSA) publicly announced a formal investigation into the damage of Cemara 500. The NHTSA investigation found that the problem of segregation of the site is likely to be a design flaw affecting all Firestone 500.
In 1973, just two years after the 500 debut, Thomas A. Robertson, the development director of Firestone wrote an internal memo stating "We are making low-quality radial tires that will burden us with belt separation at high mileage". Firestone introduced strict quality control measures in an effort to fix the inherent problem, but they did not succeed in eliminating the total base error. In 1977, the recall of 400,000 tires produced at the troubled Decatur plant began. Firestone was considered less cooperative with NHTSA during an agency investigation into Firestone 500. Firestone blamed the problem on consumers, stating the lack of inflation and poor maintenance.
On October 20, 1978, Firestone attracted more than 7 million Firestone 500 tires, the largest tire withdrawal to date. The 500th Congressional hearings also took place in 1978. Ban was found to be damaged and caused 250 deaths. In May 1980 after finding that they knew the tire was flawed, NHTSA fined Firestone $ 500,000 USD, which at that time was the largest fine imposed on US companies and the largest civil penalty imposed since the passage of the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Act. Various lawsuits were settled out of court and the negative publicity constantly paralyzed the sale and stock price of the company.
Harvard Business School and Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania teach classes and write papers on issues of mismanagement and poor decision making by Firestone management. After years of bad publicity and millions paid in compensation to victims, Firestone lost a lot of money, and his name was badly damaged.
Liberia Rubber Plantations
Firestone founded the Firestone Natural Rubber plantation in Harbel, Liberia in 1926. From 1926 until the outbreak of the First Liberian Civil War in 1990, Firestone Natural Rubber Company was the largest plantation in the world. In September 1990, the NPFL rebel forces (led by Charles Taylor, who would later be convicted of war crimes) were executed by Liberia's president Samuel Doe and seized Harbel's estate. Firestone had to evacuate American workers as a result. In June 1991, Firestone sent a delegation to Monrovia in an attempt to restart operations at Harbel. After a month of waiting, the delegation was brought to meet Taylor, and after six months of negotiations, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Reconstruction Assembly, Ministry of Government Reconstruction, Ministry of Finance in January 1991. This Memorandum of Understanding is provided for the tax payable by Firestone to the Taylor government, and to the Taylor government to provide protection to Firestone employees and assets in Liberia. Firestone resumed operations in March 1992, but once again had to stop in October of the same year when hostilites increased. During this period, the company has paid $ 2.3 million in taxes to the Taylor government, which some say helps legitimize Taylor's government and finances and allows his attacks on ECOMOG to control Monrovia. The operation was not fully restarted until 2003 at the end of the Second Liberian Civil War. Since the end of the war, Firestone has invested more than $ 100 million to recover and rebuild its facilities in Liberia.
The company's efforts in Liberia have been subject to scrutiny and criticism, including the case of the Alien Tort Claims Act 2005 brought in California by the International Labor Rights Fund and Procublic's 2014 investigation report entitled "Firestone and the Warlord", and PBS Frontline a documentary of the same name.
Ford Explorer rollover problem
In 1996, several state agencies in Arizona began to experience major problems with Firestone tires at Explorers. According to news reports, agencies are demanding new tires, and Firestone conducts investigations into complaints, tests tires and tries to confirm that tires have been abused or bullied.
On September 6, 2000, in a statement to the US Senate Fund, Transport Sub-subcommittee on the president's subcommittee on public consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, Joan Claybrook, stated:
... There are a number of parallels between this memory in 2000 and the memory of 1978 from Firestone 500... there is a closure documented by Firestone of 500 defects, triggered by the lack of a substitute for Firestone. When the closure was disclosed, the company's top management was replaced because Firestone had been badly damaged in reputation and economy. But the main difference is that Firestone 500 is used on passenger cars, which rarely roll over with tire failures. NHTSA documented 41 deaths with 500, recall, involving seven million tires.
The report continues to show that Ford has also been involved, stating that Ford Motor Company has instructed Firestone to add a nylon coating to the tires it made in Venezuela for additional strength and that Ford has made suspension changes to the Explorer models available in Venezuela. Ford does not specifically add nylon plates to Firestone tires made in the US nor does it change the Explorer suspension on current US models.
The extremely high failure rates at Firestone Wilderness AT, Firestone ATX, and ATX II resulted in numerous lawsuits, as well as the eventual withdrawal that eventually took place. In 2001 Bridgestone/Firestone broke with Ford on the grounds of a lack of trust. Lack of confidence stems from fears that Ford is not paying attention to warnings by Bridgestone/Firestone linked to Ford Explorer's design. In 2006, Firestone announced a new attempt to recall the tires with the same model that was recalled in 2000 after tires were linked to recent deaths and injuries. According to Firestone's recent filing with the National Highway Transportation Administration, only 90,259 of the more than 2.5 million tires withdrawn are confirmed to have been removed from service. In November 2013, two ATL drawn Wilderness tires were found in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the tires was offered for sale as a new item at a used tire retail store.
Some outside observers have speculated about the feasibility of blaming both sides. Firestone tires are susceptible to site segregation and failure, and SUVs are particularly vulnerable to roll over if the tires fail at speed compared to other vehicles. The subsequent NHTSA investigation of real-world accident data shows that the Ford Explorer SUV is no more likely to roll over than any other SUV, after site separation.
Jingle television ad
Where Rubber Meets the Road is an ad jingle that is often used in the 1960s and 1970s, especially on television sporting events. Jingle is sung by Don Rondo.
- Any wheel scrolling,
- No matter what the load is,
- Known names are Firestone
- Where the rubber meets the street
Other brands
Bridgestone/Firestone also manufactures tires under the brand name Fuzion. Fuzion is a tire manufactured in China for Bridgestone/Firestone as a budget replacement tire.
Make up includes Fuzion UHP Sport A/S, SUV, and Touring.
See also
- Bridgestone
- Firestone-Apsley Rubber Company
- Ban Formula One
- Tom Gegax
- IndyCar Series
References
External links
- Official website
- Century of Progress from the Top Memory Project
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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