Michelin

Michelin (full name: Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin) (Euronext: ML) based in Clermont-Ferrand, France in the Auvergne région of France, is primarily a tyre manufacturer. more...

However, it is also famous for its Red and Green travel guides, for the Michelin stars the Red Guide awards to restaurants for their cooking, for its road maps, and for its historic emblem Bibendum, the Michelin Man.

The tyre manufacturing subsidiary is officially called Manufacture Française des Pneumatiques Michelin, "Michelin tyre manufacturing company of France"

History

Incorporated on May 28, 1889, Michelin's activities date back to 1830 in vulcanized rubber, before they moved into tyres for bicycles and later for cars. Michelin owned the automobile manufacturer Citroën between 1934 and 1976.

In 1988, Michelin acquired the tyre and rubber manufacturing divisions of the American B.F. Goodrich Company founded in 1870. Two years later, they bought out Uniroyal Inc., a business founded in 1892 as the United States Rubber Company.

Formula One

Michelin stopped supplying Formula One teams in 1984 but returned to Formula One in 2001. In that first year they supplied Williams, Jaguar, Benetton (renamed Renault in 2002) and Prost. Toyota joined F1 in 2002 with Michelin tyres and McLaren and Minardi also signed up with the company. Michelin's tyres were initially uncompetitive compared to rival Bridgestone's, however by 2005 Michelin were totally dominant. This was in part due to new regulations stating that tyres must last the whole race distance (and qualifying) and also due to the fact with only one top team running Bridgestone tyres (Ferrari), they alone were responsible for much of the development work. Michelin in contrast had much more testing and race data due to the larger number of teams running their tyres.

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