In a message dated 8/14/01 3:12:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
corey.sherman@rcn.com writes:
> "The Goodrich Corporation has not made or sold tires in more than a
> decade. This business was sold to Michelin, which continues to sell tires
> under the BFGoodrich brand. (http://www.bfgoodrich.com/discont.asp)"
>
>
In fact, the Benjamin Franklin Goodrich Company no longer exists at all.
They got out of the tire business years ago and began focusing on aircraft
braking systems and specialty chemicals. Then, a few years ago, they moved
from Akron to NC and merged with another company, called I believe ColTec.
The new company is called Inrich.
Lots of tire brand names owned by the big tire companies. Unless you live in
Akron, Ohio (the rubber capital of the World), as I do, you probably only
want tires that are round, black and cheap (and as they say, round and black
are optional). Accordingly, because it is so tough to distinguish one tire
from another in the marketplace, the big two (Goodyear and Michelin) have
been buying up tire compaines hoping to become or remain "the largest tire
company in the world," which has value as a mraketing slogan. Remember the
slogan "The best tires in the world have Goodyear written all over them"?
That was before they were the biggest. With the acquisition of Sumitomo a
year or two ago, Goodyear is now the largest tire manufacturer.
Unfortunately, the debt that resulted from that acquisition has forced them
to give up almost all of their racing operations, which is why our beloved
Goodyear blimp was replaced this year at Indy by the MetLife blimp -- there
were no Goodyear tires in the race! So while Firestone is self-destructing,
they are now leading in race tires. It'd really be too bad if the meanies at
Ford make them go bankrupt after they get all their racing prestige back
after so many years absent from the field.
I'll quit rambling now.
Chris Eck
Akron, Ohio
59 Bugeye
59 TR3A
93 Audi S4 TQ
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