The
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is an American tire company founded by
Harvey FirestoneHarvey Samuel Firestone was an American businessman, and the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, one of the first global makers of automobile tires.-Family background:...
in 1900 to supply pneumatic
tireA tire or tyre is a ring-shaped covering that fits around a wheel rim to protect it and enable better vehicle performance by providing a flexible cushion that absorbs shock while keeping the wheel in close contact with the ground...
s for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles. The company was a pioneer in the mass production of tires. Harvey Firestone had a friendship with Henry Ford. Firestone used this relationship to become the original equipment supplier of
Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor Company is an American multinational automaker based in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The automaker was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. In addition to the Ford and Lincoln brands, Ford also owns a small stake in Mazda in Japan and Aston Martin in the UK...
automobiles, and was also active in the replacement market.
In 1988, the company was sold to the Japanese
BridgestoneThe is a multinational rubber conglomerate founded in 1931 by in the city of Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. The name Bridgestone comes from a calque translation and transposition of ishibashi, meaning "stone bridge" in Japanese....
Corporation.
Early/mid 20th century
Firestone was originally based in
Akron, OhioAkron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
, also the hometown of its archrival,
Goodyear Tire and Rubber CompanyThe Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company was founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, SUVs, race cars, airplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-mover machinery....
. The company initiated operations in 1900 with 12 employees. Together, Firestone and Goodyear were the largest suppliers of automotive tires in North America for over three-quarters of a century.
In 1906 Firestone was chosen by Henry Ford for the
Model TThe Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from September 1908 to May 1927...
.
In 1919, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Canada was incorporated in Hamilton, Ontario and in 1922, the first Canadian-made tire rolled off the line on September 15. During the '20s, Firestone produced the Oldfield tire, named for
racingAuto racing is a motorsport involving the racing of cars for competition. It is one of the world's most watched televised sports.-The beginning of racing:...
driver
Barney OldfieldBerna Eli "Barney" Oldfield was an automobile racer and pioneer. He was born on a farm on the outskirts of Wauseon, Ohio. He was the first man to drive a car at 60 miles per hour on an oval...
.
At one point, the company had a rubber plantation in
LiberiaLiberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
that covered more than 4,000 square kilometers (1 million acres).
The company sponsored
The Voice of FirestoneThe Voice of Firestone, is a long-running radio and television program of classical music. The show featured leading singers in selections from opera and operetta. Originally titled The Firestone Hour, it was first broadcast on the NBC Radio network December 3, 1928 and was later also shown on...
on the radio beginning on December 1928. The program was transferred to television as an NBC simulcast on 5 September 1949. The last broadcast was in 1963.
In 1928 the company built a factory in
BrentfordThe Golden Mile is the name given to a stretch of the Great West Road north of Brentford running west from the western boundary of Chiswick in London, United Kingdom.It was so called due to the concentration of industry along this short stretch of road...
, England, for long an
Art DecoArt deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
landmark on a major route into the city. This closed in 1979.
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the company was called on by the U.S. Government to make artillery shells, aluminum kegs for food transport and other rubberized military products. In the 1940s, Firestone was given a defense contract to produce plastic helmet liners. While outproduced by Westinghouse Electric they still made a fair amount for the
M1 HelmetThe M1 helmet is a combat helmet that was used by the American military from World War II until it was succeeded by the PASGT helmet beginning in 1985. For over forty years, the M1 was standard issue for the U.S...
.
In 1951, Firestone was given the defense contract for the
MGM-5 CorporalThe MGM-5 Corporal missile was the first guided weapon authorized by the United States to carry a nuclear warhead.The first nuclear-authorized unguided rocket was the MGR-1 Honest John...
missile. Firestone was given a total of US$6,888,796 for the first 200 Missiles. This missile was known as the "Embryo of the Army" and was a surface-to-surface guided missile which could deliver a high explosive warhead up to 75 nautical miles (139 km). It was later modified to be able to carry a nuclear payload for use in the event of
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
hostilities in Eastern Europe. This missile was replaced in 1962 by the
MGM-29 SergeantThe MGM-29 Sergeant was an American short-range, solid fuel, surface-to-surface missile developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Activated by the US Army in 1962 to replace the MGM-5 Corporal it was deployed overseas by 1963, carrying the W52 nuclear warhead or alternatively one of high explosives...
system.
In 1961, Firestone acquired the Dayton Tire division from the Dayco Corporation.
Restructuring and sale to Bridgestone
In late 1979, Firestone brought in John Nevin, the ex-head of Zenith Electronics, as president to save the hemorrhaging company from total collapse. It was more than a billion dollars in debt at the time, and losing 250 million dollars a year. Nevin closed nine of the company's seventeen manufacturing plants, including six in one day. He moved the company from its ancestral home in Akron to Chicago. He spun off non-tire related businesses, including the Firestone Country Club. It was considered a deliberate plan to boost the stock price, and it paid off. In 1988 after discussions with Pirelli, Nevin negotiated the sale of the company to the Japanese company
BridgestoneThe is a multinational rubber conglomerate founded in 1931 by in the city of Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. The name Bridgestone comes from a calque translation and transposition of ishibashi, meaning "stone bridge" in Japanese....
. Bridgestone Corporation Japan was able to buy the company for much less than it had been worth a decade and a half earlier. The combined Bridgestone / Firestone North American operations are now based in
Nashville, TennesseeNashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
.
Apart from tires, Firestone operates several businesses under the
Firestone Diversified ProductsFirestone Diversified Products, LLC is an umbrella company that houses Firestone Building Products, Firestone Specialty Products, Firestone Industrial Products Company, and Firestone Natural Rubber Company. The non-tire arm of Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, a subsidiary of Bridgestone,...
umbrella. These companies include
Firestone Building ProductsFirestone Building Products is a division of Firestone Diversified Products, LLC, a subsidiary of Bridgestone Americas . BSA is a subsidiary of Bridgestone Corporation, the world’s largest tire and rubber company....
, Firestone Industrial Products Company, Firestone Complete Auto Care, Firestone Natural Rubber Company and Firestone Specialty Products. Firestone Diversified Products is headquartered in
Indianapolis, IndianaIndianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
and operates in 23 U.S. states and ten countries, with 11,000 employees worldwide. Annually, the company reports annual sales of more than $2.5 billion.
In 1972 Firestone received a ten year import "concession" by the Kenyan government to secure Firestone's investment in a domestic tire plant, which gave it a virtual monopoly. This included both general price and foreign exchange controls. When the ten year period came to an end in 1979, Firestone retaliated by increasing production, making entry less attractive. Headquarters eventually canceled expansion and failed negotiations lead to no further investments.
Great American streetcar scandal
In 1950, Firestone along with
General MotorsGeneral Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
and
Standard OilChevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation headquartered in San Ramon, California, United States and active in more than 180 countries. It is engaged in every aspect of the oil, gas, and geothermal energy industries, including exploration and production; refining,...
were charged and convicted of criminal conspiracy for their part in the Great American streetcar scandal. The scandal included purchasing streetcar systems throughout the United States and dismantling and replacing them with buses.
Firestone 500 tread separation problem
Radial tireA radial tire is a particular design of automotive tire . In this design, the cord plies are arranged at 90 degrees to the direction of travel, or radially ....
s were introduced to the US market by rivals Goodrich and Michelin in the late 1960s, and Firestone lacked one. The first radial tire developed and produced by Firestone was the ill-fated Firestone 500 Radial. Manufacturing of the new tire was performed on equipment designed to manufacture bias-ply tires.
During the 1970s, Firestone experienced major problems with the Firestone 500 radial. The Firestone 500 steel-belted radials began to show signs of separation of the tread at high speeds. While the cause was never proved, it is believed that the failure of bonding cements, used by Firestone to hold the tread to the tire carcass, may have allowed water to penetrate the tire which in turn may have caused the internal steel wire to corrode. In March 1978, the U.S.
National Highway Traffic Safety AdministrationThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is an agency of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government, part of the Department of Transportation...
(NHTSA) announced publicly a formal investigation into defects of the Firestone 500. The NHTSA investigation found that the tread separation problem was most probably a design defect affecting all Firestone 500's.
In 1973, only two years after the 500's debut, Thomas A. Robertson, Firestone's director of development wrote an internal memo stating "We are making an inferior quality radial tire which will subject us to belt-edge separation at high mileage". Firestone introduced strict quality control measures in an attempt to fix the inherent problems, however they were not successful in totally eliminating the basic faults. In 1977 a recall of 400,000 tires produced at the problematic
DecaturDecatur is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U.S. state of Illinois. The city, sometimes called "the Soybean Capital of the World", was founded in 1823 and is located along the Sangamon River and Lake Decatur in Central Illinois. In 2000 the city population was 81,500,...
plant was initiated. Firestone was considered to be less than cooperative with the NHTSA during the agency's investigation into the Firestone 500. Firestone blamed the problems on the consumer, stating underinflation and poor maintenance.
On October 20, 1978, Firestone recalled over 7 million Firestone 500 tires, the largest tire recall to date. Congressional hearings into the 500 also took place in 1978. The tire was found to be defective and the cause of 34 deaths. In May 1980 after finding that they knew the tires were defective, the NHTSA fines Firestone $500,000 USD, which at that time was the largest fine imposed on any U.S. corporation and the largest civil penalty imposed since passage of the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Act. Multiple lawsuits were settled out of court and the constant negative publicity crippled the company's sales and share price.
Harvard Business SchoolHarvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
and
Wharton SchoolThe Wharton School is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Wharton was the world’s first collegiate business school and the first business school in the United States...
taught classes and wrote papers on the issues of misjudgments and poor decision making by the management of Firestone. After years of bad publicity and millions paid out in compensation to victims, Firestone was losing vast amounts of money, and its name was severely damaged.
Liberian rubber plant
In 1926, Firestone opened one of the world's biggest
rubberNatural rubber, also called India rubber or caoutchouc, is an elastomer that was originally derived from latex, a milky colloid produced by some plants. The plants would be ‘tapped’, that is, an incision made into the bark of the tree and the sticky, milk colored latex sap collected and refined...
plantations in
LiberiaLiberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
,
West AfricaWest Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. In 2005, a case against Firestone was brought by the
International Labor Rights FundThe International Labor Rights Forum is a nonprofit advocacy organization headquartered in Washington, DC that describes itself as "an advocate for and with the working poor around the world". ILRF, formerly the International Labor Rights Education & Research Fund, was founded in 1986...
which states,
Firestone's management rejects these allegations citing that the corporation has provided employment and pensions to thousands of Liberians as well as health care. The company also provides education and training opportunities to employees and their children.
In May 2006, the
United Nations Mission in LiberiaThe United Nations Mission in Liberia is a peace-keeping force established in September 2003 to monitor a ceasefire agreement in Liberia following the resignation of President Charles Taylor and the conclusion of the Second Liberian Civil War....
(UNMIL) released a report detailing the state of
human rightsHuman rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
on Liberia's rubber plantations. According to the report, Firestone managers in Liberia admitted that the company does not effectively monitor its own policy prohibiting child labor. UNMIL found that several factors contribute to the occurrence of child labor on Firestone plantations: pressure to meet company quotas, incentive to support the family financially, and lack of access to basic education. The report also noted that workers' housing provided by Firestone has not been renovated since the houses were constructed in the 1920s and 1930s.
Dan Adomitis, President of Firestone Natural Rubber Company, made the following statement on CNN in reference to the production quotas and child labor:
In response to the accusations of
child laborChild labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
and poor housing in the UN report, Dan Adomitis; President of Firestone Natural Rubber Company Liberia; stated:
Ford Explorer rollover problem
In 1996, several state agencies in Arizona began having major problems with Firestone tires on Explorers. According to news reports, various agencies demanded new tires, and Firestone conducted an investigation of the complaints, tested the tires and asserted that the tires had been abused or under-inflated.
On September 6, 2000, in a statement before the US Senate Appropriations Transportation subcommittee the president of the consumer advocacy group
Public CitizenPublic Citizen is a non-profit, consumer rights advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a branch in Austin, Texas. Public Citizen was founded by Ralph Nader in 1971, headed for 26 years by Joan Claybrook, and is now headed by Robert Weissman.-Lobbying Efforts:Public Citizen...
,
Joan ClaybrookJoan Claybrook is an American lawyer who served as President of Public Citizen from 1982 until she announced her resignation on December 9, 2008. Previously, she was head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981.Claybrook grew up in the...
, stated:
The report went on to indicate that Ford also had a major role in the problems stating that The Ford Motor Company had instructed Firestone to add a nylon ply to the tires it manufactured in Venezuela for additional strength and that Ford had made suspension changes to the Explorer model available in Venezuela. Ford did not specify adding the nylon ply for U.S.-made Firestone tires nor did it change the Explorer suspension on US models at this time.
An abnormally high failure rate in Firestone's Wilderness AT, Firestone ATX, and ATX II tires resulted in multiple lawsuits, as well as an eventual mandatory recall. In 2001 Bridgestone/Firestone severed its ties to Ford citing a lack of trust. The lack of trust stemmed from concerns that Ford had not heeded warnings by Bridgestone/Firestone relating to the design of the Ford Explorer. In 2006, Firestone announced renewed efforts to recall tires of the same model recalled in 2000 after the tires were linked to recent deaths and injuries. Although Firestone estimates 97% of the tires were replaced in the 2000 recall concern existed over spare tires that many owners did not think to replace during the 2000 recall. Part of this effort was a new advertising campaign in an attempt to reach the 5% of customers that still had not acted on its voluntary recall program. The recall/replacement program was supported by a comprehensive advertising and consumer outreach campaign and over 6.3 million tires were replaced of the total 6.5 million affected. While the company believes that most of those tires unaccounted for have probably been scrapped long ago it is still trying to locate as many as possible.
- The vice president of Quality Assurance for Bridgestone Firestone North America Tire, LLC; Mike Kane, stated "Even though there are only a small percentage of these tires believed to be still in use, we are continuing to put safety first and are implementing this campaign to try and reach a group of consumers whose tires have not been recovered".
Television advertisement jingle
Where the Rubber Meets the Road is an advertisement
jingleA jingle is a short tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. The jingle contains one or more hooks and lyrics that explicitly promote the product being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television...
that was frequently used in the 1960s and 1970s, especially on televised sporting events.
- Wherever wheels are rolling,
- No matter what the load,
- The name that's known is Firestone
- Where the rubber meets the road
See also
- Bridgestone
The is a multinational rubber conglomerate founded in 1931 by in the city of Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. The name Bridgestone comes from a calque translation and transposition of ishibashi, meaning "stone bridge" in Japanese....
- Firestone-Apsley Rubber Company
The Firestone-Apsley Rubber Company was the successor of the Apsley Rubber Company, and was located in Hudson, Massachusetts.-History:The Goodyear Gossamer Company was founded in 1885 in Hudson by U.S. congressman and businessman Lewis Dewart Apsley and J. H. Coffin of Boston...
- Formula One tires
- Tom Gegax
Tom Gegax is an American entrepreneur, author, angel investor and philanthropist.Gegax was a co-founder of Tires Plus Stores, a national retail tire chain. In 2000, he sold Tires Plus to Bridgestone/Firestone.-Biography:...
- IndyCar Series
The IZOD IndyCar Series is the premier level of American open wheel racing. The current championship, founded by Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George, began in 1996 as a competitor to CART known as the Indy Racing League . Citing CART's increasing reliance on expensive machinery and...
External links