BRIEF HISTORY OF BRIDGESTONE TYRES

The Bridgestone brand is one of the most popular tyre brands in the whole wide world, it has more than 50,000 employees and 52 production companies around the world.But every successful business has a starting point,

The History of Bridgestone – Starting point

Shojiro Ishibashi, was a humble japanese who would later become the founder of the Bridgestone Tire Company, he started managing and running his family-owned clothing business at the age of 17. He decided to use his savings to invest in rubber industry in Japan: he started with socks called tabi socks that have rubber soles for working in factories, then he delved into tire making.

On April 9, 1930, Ishibashi’s dream of producing tyres domestically became a reality when his own in-house operation, referred to as the Japan “Tabi” socks Tyre Division, manufactured the first Bridgestone tyre.

On March 1, 1931, Ishibashi formed the Bridgestone Tyre Company, Ltd. in Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, a city in Japan. For more than 50 years, Bridgestone continued to evolve and eventually established itself not only as the largest manufacturer of tyres in the country, but also as an international brand. However, they faced many challenges along the way.

During its early days, the Bridgestone Tyre Company was stalled by production, technology and sales-related issues.

And then came World War II, which was the necessitated the destruction of its Tokyo Headquarters along with the complete eradication of assets located overseas.

Fortunately, the war came to an end and the emerging tyre and rubber manufacturer was also able to open a plant in Singapore in 1965. And in 1967, the Bridgestone Tyre Company of America was formed.

Technological Advancements;

In 1951, Bridgestone introduced rayon cord tyres to Japan. And only eight years later, it added nylon tyres to its arsenal of products. The tire and rubber giant also opened another plant in Tokyo in 1960. Bridgestone began selling passenger-vehicle tyres, known as RD-10s, in 1967. In 1978, it put the high-performance radial tire, POTENZA, on the market.

The Merger

Although Bridgestone’s founder passed away in 1976, the company continued to grow. It purchased the Firestone Tyre & Rubber Company plant, located in Tennessee, in 1982 and in 1988 the company made the decision to shift to a global corporation by acquiring The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. This well-established company was founded in August 1900 by Harvey Firestone in Akron, Ohio, and had already made a mark internationally in the evolving tire and rubber industry. Following the merger, the newly formed Bridgestone Group quickly claimed its share of the market as one of the largest global tire and rubber entities.

Since the merger, Bridgestone remains committed to excellence and desires to go the extra mile to serve both customers and society with quality products.