Firestone Tires for Sale
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First founded by Harvey Firestone in 1900, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company supplied pneumatic tires for almost any form of wheeled transport common then, from buggies to wagons. However, the immense potential for automobile tires was soon obvious, and Firestone pioneered tire mass production. Because of their ability to produce tires effectively and efficiently, Firestone was the original supplier for cars and trucks from Ford, including the 1906 Model T, and also offered replacement parts for these vehicles. (Read more about Firestone Tires below...)
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More About the Firestone Tire Saga
Firestone was based originally in Akron, which was also the location of Goodyear - the company's major business rival. For more than three quarters of a century, the two companies were the biggest suppliers of tires for vehicles in North America. The company expanded to Canada in 1919, producing the first tire made in that country in September of 1922.
The Oldfield tire, named after a famous racer, was popular in the 1920s. Between 1928 and 1979, the Art Deco factory in Brentford, England, was also operational. During the late twenties, the Voice of Firestone was a popular sponsored radio show, eventually transferred to television in 1949 and broadcasting until 1963.
It wasn't all just about tires, though. Firestone received a defense contract in 1951 for the MGM-5 Corporal missile, called the embryo of the army. This surface to surface guided missile was designed to deliver an explosive warhead over a distance of up to seventy-five nautical miles, or about a hundred thirty-nine kilometers. It could even carry a nuclear payload, and many were produced. However, by 1962, the missile had been replaced by the MGM-29 Sergeant.
By the late 1970s, Firestone was having difficulties in the financial arena, and restructured significantly, closing many plants and moving the company. Problems with the Firestone 500 radial - the company's first radial tire - may have added to these troubles. The versions of this radial produced in the 1970s showed tread separation at high speeds, possibly due to bonding cement failure and corrosion of the internal steel. Strict quality control measures helped, but didn't completely fix the problems, and four hundred thousand tires produced in Decatur, Illinois were recalled in 1977, with another seven million recalled in 1978.
Diversification and deliberate actions to boost stock price helped improve the situation. In 1988, the company was sold to Bridgestone, another major tire producer based in Japan. Currently, the companies' combined operations work out of Nashville, Tennessee and are still producing tires. Bridgestone is one of the largest suppliers of tires in the world, and by extension, so is Firestone.
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