Activists Animal Rebellion caused an estimated £80,000 worth of damage by drilling sidewalls or cutting valve stems of around 200 truck tyre at Müller Dairies’ Willenhall depot last week. The tyres were fitted to trucks used to transport milk, with the vegan group acting to interrupt the distribution of dairy products. Police reportedly made 11 arrests on suspicion of criminal damage.
Continental Tyre South Africa is marking its 75th anniversary in South Africa with its sponsorship of Cars.co.za’s four-part ‘Continental Icons’ video series. Available on the Cars.co.za YouTube channel, one of the largest branded channels in South Africa with more than 320 000 subscribers, the videos highlight the tyre manufacturer’s original equipment heritage. The General Tire and Rubber Company South Africa was founded in January 1947 and acquired by Continental AG in 1998, after which it was renamed Continental Tyre South Africa. The company said the acquisition helped cement it as one of the country’s leading tyre manufacturers.
Falken has been nominated for an International Motor Film Award in the Best Event Film category for its Nürburgring 24 hour race feature, ‘A Declaration of Love’. The brand previously won the prize in 2021 with its short film ‘Whatever Comes Our Way’. Production company Motionctrl, Falken’s long-term video collaborator shot the nominated film on location. You can view the short film below or on Falken’s YouTube channel.
Saturday should have been a day to remember for Bruno Göggel, and indeed it was. But instead of fond memories of celebrating his nuptials with family and friends, the owner of German tyre wholesaler Reifen Göggel watched a large part of his recently-built facility burn to the ground.
Manuel Zoldan and Gianluca Folco have answered a question we never thought of asking – how quickly can a wheel be changed on a moving vehicle? The Italian duo managed the task in 1 min 17.64 seconds, and this stands as a Guinness World Record.
Falken has paid homage to its first aftermarket tyre for electric cars in a short video. The clip, just under a minute long, focuses on the Falken e.Ziex, which debuted at The Tire Cologne in May. Falken says the new tyre is “one of the best tyres in terms of energy efficiency ever developed and manufactured by the Sumitomo Rubber Group.”
The Giti Tire Motorsport by WS Racing team won the VT2 class and achieved third place in the SP8T class with its all-female racing team at the 50th ADAC TotalEnergies 24hr Nürburgring endurance race. Both vehicles delivered their results on GitiCompete GTR1 tyres. The new BMW M4 GT4 of ‘Girls Only – Ready to Rock the Green Hell’ achieved a magnificent third place in the powerful SP8T after a near seamless weekend of high-octane action which saw the race go the full distance.
The organisers of Hillhead 2022, a frequent meeting point for OTR tyre suppliers, have signalled the start of the countdown to the 21-23 June event with a bang. Carried out by EPC-UK, two sections of the quarry face in the Demonstration area at the north end of the site were recently drilled and blasted to produce around 30,000 tonnes of run-of-quarry stone for equipment demonstration purposes at this year’s show.
GT Radial hosted distributors and customers at the finale of its first season as Official Tyre Partner of the Champions Hockey League. The 1 March game at the home of Swedish finalists Rögle Ängelholm marked the culmination of its eight-month campaign. The Giti Tire brand used “Europe’s greatest ice hockey competition” to boost brand awareness of its winter portfolio across the continent.
Despite the impact that pandemic restrictions have placed on face-to-face fundraising, over the last year Kwik Fit raised more than £300,000 for its charity partner Prostate Cancer UK. With Covid-19 restricting the options for fundraising, the programme has placed a greater focus on online activity and staff participating in virtual and individual events. These included a team of employees from the company’s Fleet and Mobile division completing a “round the world” trip – walking, running and cycling a total of 25,734 miles and raising over £18,000.
The past two years have given plenty of reason to be optimistic about the speed of the electrification of the car parc. In the UK plug-in electric vehicle sales have grown market share quickly, rising to 18.5 per cent of new car registrations in the UK in 2021, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Add in hybrids, and this figure was over a quarter (27.5 per cent) last year. The new car market has faced severe headwinds with component shortages and other effects of the pandemic, leading to only one percent growth compared to the year of the most severe pandemic restrictions in 2020. Meanwhile EVs have benefitted from favourable consumer perception and government-backed schemes, leading to growth where other segments have faltered. With schemes due to expire and bottlenecking in the rollout of chargepoints, there could be more turbulence for new EV sales coming, yet current projections show that confidence in the EV segment is relatively high.
Bridgestone has inaugurated a new state-of-the-art wet handling track at its European Proving Ground (EUPG) near Rome. The tyre manufacturer says the track was designed to provide suitable testing for “both traditional vehicle manufacturers and new EV players” in a variety of weather conditions. Designed within a virtual environment ahead of construction, the project received an investment of approximately 3 million euros.
Singapore-based tyre firm Omni United has commenced a partnership with GFG Style, an Italian automotive design house founded in 2015 upon the design experience of Giorgetto and Fabrizio Giugiaro. Under the partnership, GFG takes on the remit of designing Omni’s flagship brand, Radar Tyres. Omni anticipates that GFG’s influence will “take Radar’s product offering to the next level” and enhance the brand’s consumer appeal.
Continental South Africa
Falken Tyres
Giti Tire
Hillhead
Göran Strand
Bridgestone