John Dunlop, Charles Goodyear, and the History of Tires

The pneumatic (inflatable) rubber tires that are featured on millions of cars across the world are the result of multiple inventors working across several decades. And those inventors have names that should be recognizable to anyone who’s ever bought tires for their car: Michelin, Goodyear, Dunlop.

Of these, none had so great an impact on the invention of the tire than John Dunlop and Charles Goodyear.

According to the latest statistics, consumers purchased nearly 80 million cars between 1990 and 2017. How many are currently on the road is estimated to be about 1.8 billion—and that was in 2014. None of these vehicles would be operational if it hadn’t been for Charles Goodyear. You can have an engine, you can have a chassis, you can have a drive train and wheels. But without tires, you’re stuck.

In 1844, more than 50 years before the first rubber tires would appear on cars, Goodyear patented a process known as vulcanization. This process involved heating and removing the sulfur from rubber, a substance that had been discovered in the Amazon rain forest of Peru by French scientist Charles de la Condamine in 1735 (although, local Mesoamerican tribes had been working with the substance for centuries).

Vulcanization made rubber waterproof and winter-proof, while at the same time preserving its elasticity. While Goodyear’s claim to have invented vulcanization was challenged, ​he prevailed in court and is today remembered as the sole inventor of vulcanized rubber.

And that became hugely important once people realized it would be perfect for making tires.

Pneumatic Tires