RUBBER BUGGY TIRES were still thought of as a luxury rather than a necessity and Firestone almost immediately started out to change this image. It wasn’t that he objected to the luxury notion (he devoted in fact his earliest promotion efforts for the Firestone Perfect Side Wire Tire to the medical profession; then as now the doctors had a certain cost is beside the point aura about them and he knew the way to sew up the luxury trade was to get people to copy the doctor’s rubber tired elegance) but that he recognized how small that market was.
On the other end of the social scale were the wagons of the taxicab and baggage transfer business. These wagons and cabs literally rolled around the clock and they would be tougher on tires than almost any other transportation activity. Firestone returned to Chicago and talked his old friend Frank Parmalee who operated the largest cab and baggage transfer company into trying his tires.
Parmalee was delighted with them and Firestone then talked Parmalee into writing him a letter which Parmalee did in dignified language befitting a staid and prosperous businessman of the era: “We have tried a number of different tires upon the market” he wrote “and regret to say that we had considerable trouble until we adopted your tire since that time we have noted a marked decrease in loss of time to our vehicles caused by delays for repairs to the tires and it is our common experience to have them wear to the channel without repairs.
“On account of the service we have received from your tire we will continue to favor you without our business.”
Firestone took the Parmalee letter and went to New York with it using it as a wedge to get his Perfect Side Wire Tires onto the rims of the New York Fire Department’s fire wagons.
This was the toughest test for tires (and about the most exciting too) for fire engines in those days were the apex of dash and élan. Eight good horses often matched and frequently of even higher quality than those which drew the beer wagons galloping through the city streets pulling behind them the brilliant red and gold fire wagon with its coal fired steam water pump was a sight to quicken anyone’s pulse.
When the New York City Fire Department expressed about as much pleasure with Firestone’s Perfect Side Wire Tires as had Mr. Parmalee that practically sewed up the fire department business for him across the country. Among the earliest Firestone catalogues is one listing a vast array of special Fire Department Tires.
Then he turned to the brewers and again started at the top. The Anheuser Busch brewers in St. Louis had already begun to replace their teams of draft horses with battery powered trucks. They were never to replace all of them however as anyone who has watched television can attest but at that time the use of self propelled vehicles to haul beer kegs was the talk of the United States. Mr. Firestone talked to Mr. Busch and Mr. Busch put Firestone tires on his beer trucks.
What else was new was the automobile. The automobile manufacturers wanted pneumatic tires but Firestone wrote to the Chicago Automobile Club that he wasn’t having any of them. His Perfect Side Wire tires he said “have almost as great resiliency as any properly inflated pneumatic but none of the annoying weaknesses.”
This was about half true. Firestone solid tires (or soft center tires with a stiff tread and sidewalls and a soft rubber filling) couldn’t provide anything like the ride an air filled tire could. But neither did they go flat every 100 miles or so as the early pneumatic tires did with distressing regularity.
Firestone was really avoiding the question. He was one of the first to understand that the horseless carriage wasn’t a toy that it would put the horse out of business despite the mocking of the whole idea by most of his friends and associates. But on the other hand he had a good business going selling hard rubber tires to buggy and wagon owners and it would have been very nice if he could just sell the same kind of tire to the automobilist.
He was getting good money for his tires and wheels. In an era when he was already getting a reputation for paying his labor force more than he had to he was paying his laborers 16 cents an hour ($9.60 for a 6o hour week) and his most highly skilled craftsmen and foremen no more than 27.5 cents an hour ($16.50 a week) he was selling two 25 inch wheels and tires for $32 (2.5 inch tread) and 60 inch wheels and tires for $68 a pair. Wider truck and wagon tires were even more expensive: Four inch wide tires on 25 inch wheels cost $72 a pair; on 60 inch wheels $160. For the Fire Department’s steam pumpers and the beer trucks Firestone offered and more important sold solid tires 8 inches wide for $734 ( with wheels $784 ).
He was making money and his reputation was now secure. When the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition (sort of a World’s Fair) was held in St. Louis in 1904 Firestone took pride in receiving the Exhibition’s Gold Medal for his products and a certain more practical satisfaction from the knowledge that every tire that rolled on the Exhibition Grounds from service wagons to the new fangled electric battery powered buses which carried the spectators about at a dazzling seven miles per hour had Firestone stamped on its side.
Finally however Firestone came out in 1905 with a pneumatic tire. R. G. Dun (a business reporting firm which evolved into Dun & Brad street) in its 1906 report announced that the tire had “won favorable recognition” at the New York Automobile Show and that the firm had “booked laroe orders.”
In 1900 there had been 8000 auto mobiles registered in the United States steam gasoline and electric. They were as common as say private twin engine airplanes are in the United States today. Everybody had seen them moving about and marveled at them and rather envied their owners because they obviously were a very nice thing to have at your command. Simply knowing someone who owned one gave people a thrill.
Five years later in 1905 the total had jumped to 77000 and the first mass production had been started, before a man named Ransom E. Olds had started making large numbers (eventually 5000 of one model) of identical automobiles cars had been built one at a time. Even Henry Ford had begun in the automobile business in that way. A customer was found. A deposit was made and specifications agreed upon and then the mechanics and carpenters and upholsterers started putting the car together. The procedure was very much like that used today in home construction.
Olds (whose name survives in the Oldsmobile and REO trucks) came to the conclusion (shortly followed by Ford) that the way to really get rich (rather than just make a comfortable living) was to mass produce cars and sell them to practically everybody.
The one thing that appealed to potential buyers was speed. Henry Ford recognized this and got the Ford Motor Company before the public’s eyes by hiring bicycle racer Barney Oldfield. He taught Oldfield how to drive and then provided him with a racing car (Old Number 999) and told him to go out and win races.
There was no problem really in getting an engine and a transmission to turn the wheels fast. The trouble came in getting tires to stay on the wheels.
The pneumatic tire business had started in Scotland with Dunlop who had devised an inflated inner tube fabric covered outer tube bicycle tire. It worked well on bicycles (and indeed was the real reason for the bicycle revolution) but it wouldn’t hold up under the weight of an auto mobile.
The original ply material in tires was cloth most often muslin. It was woven like any other cloth which is to say “square.” The threads in each direction crossed at 90 degrees with the threads in the other direction. This worked well for material used on shirts and skirts. But when the fabric was impregnated with rubber and then formed in a roll to make a tire the threads literally sawed each other apart as the tire flexed as it revolved on the ground under the weight of the car.
The first improvement still using “square” woven cloth was to put it into the tire on the bias that is with the threads running in the line of strain rather than at ninety degrees. This helped some but not much. And the problem of keeping the tire on the rim bad enough with solid tires was worse with air filled tires because they moved (flexed) with each revolution of the wheel and to a lesser degree with each movement of the steering wheel.
Firestone (who was still driving to work in a fringe topped surrey pulled by a matched pair of horses as be fitted an up and coming dignified business executive) put his engineers to work on the problem and gave it a good deal of thought himself.
The standard technique of mounting a tire to the rim was the ‘clincher.” The top edge of the rim (inside and outside) was turned in. The open edges of the tire were thickened and called beads. When the inner tube was inflated the beads were pressed against the turned in rims and held there by air pressure.
It was a delightful theory on paper but in practice it left a good deal to be desired. For one thing when the tire rolled over a hazard (like a rock) the tire compressed and either came out from under the lip or was cut by the lip. Furthermore under certain strains (such as acceleration or braking) the tire would slip around the rim either neatly clipping off the valve to the inner tube or pinching the inner tube or putting a tear in the inner tube. The in evitable result was a flat tire.
That meant that the wheel had to be jacked up off the ground the flat tire manhandled (with a large arrangement of special tools) from the rim a new tire manhandled back in place and then laboriously pumped up by hand.
This inefficient impractical and highly infuriating technique was held to be the latest solution to the problem and the right to manufacture tires incorporating its outstanding technical characteristics was held by the C & J Clincher Tire Association. C & J had been absorbed by the American Bicycle Company Trust and that in turn had been absorbed by the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Company and then that in turn had been absorbed by the United States Rubber Company.
When Harvey Firestone applied for permission to use the C & J patents to manufacture pneumatic tires (the standard practice was that C & J was paid a royalty of so much per tire) C & J turned him down. There were already enough tire manufacturers competing for the small pneumatic market and no more were desired.
The “Commissioner of the Tire Association” turned down Harvey Firestone in 1904. Firestone although visibly annoyed promptly set out to devise a better means of fixing the tire to the wheel.
The first thing he tried was to put a wire in the bead (much as there is a cable in the bead of modern tires). Then the wire in bead was bolted to the rim. It worked but not well.
Then Firestone turned up an inventor who had what looked like a better idea. The idea was to rivet a series of small plates to the sidewall just above the bead one every inch or inch and a half. Then a bolt was run through the rim and the plate and made tight. It would Harvey Firestone decided solve the problem neatly and avoid the C & J patents so he arranged for the manufacturing rights and added a twist of his own. He would have demountable rims.
He would bolt the tire to the rim using the metal plates and then he would bolt the rim to the wheel. With some apparent reluctance but prepared to make any sacrifice for the business Harvey Firestone (who had finally a few months before become president of the company bearing his name) announced that he was going to buy an automobile. He had examined all the specifications he said and had concluded that the Maxwell was the best car in America.
He took the train with more than a little fanfare to tarry town New York where the Max-wells were built and apparently stood around watching while his car was assembled. It was driven to the nearest railroad siding loaded onto a flatcar and sent off to Akron. Only a maniac would attempt to drive a car that far and Harvey Firestone was no maniac. He booked a compartment on the train and in Pull man splendor befitting his position returned to Akron.
In the Firestone shops the original wheels were modified to take the Firestone Demountable Rims. When that was accomplished he and his friend Clark huff loaded their wives in the back seat adjusted their motoring dusters motoring hats and motoring goggles and set off for Columbiana Ohio where he had been bom and to which a telegram had been dispatched informing Firestone’s mother that they were en route by Maxwell auto car.
Mother Firestone as she was known was far less impressed with the fact that Harvey had made it all the way sixty whole miles on Firestone tires without a single flat than she was with the fact that a man of his age and position had demonstrated a remarkably cavalier attitude toward his wife and Mrs. Clark huff by subjecting the ladies to such an ordeal.
Firestone though known as a dutiful son didn’t seem to be very impressed with his mother’s ire; he had just proved to his own satisfaction that he could indeed build a tire quite as good probably better and certainly easier to changes the C & J.
The original Firestone factory was torn down and a three story brick building erected in its place. An 8oo horsepower engine a monster for its day was installed sufficiently powerful enough to drive all the machinery he could conceive of needing via an elaborate systems of leather belts. He had absolute faith he could keep every one of his 130 employees fully occupied.
He put his tires on display at the auto shows in New York Boston and Chicago and got some orders. More important than the orders actually received however was the information he gleaned at the shows about Henry Ford.
Ford it was repeated in smirking whispers was about to try to put a cheap little car on the market for ordinary people to buy at $500.
Harvey Firestone had known Ford when he was the Chief Engineer of the Detroit Gas Light Company and Firestone had been selling buggy tires. It was high time he decided to renew the acquaintance. The two immediately found a good deal in common.
Probably the thing that made them friends again (a friend ship that was to grow more intimate as the years passed) was that Ford had had similar problems about manufacturers’ associations himself.
In a moment of bureaucratic ineptitude a patent for an automobile had been issued to a man named Selden. The patent covered a vehicle powered by an engine and rolling on wheels in other words any automobile. There were no details as to how the vehicle was to be steered what kind of an engine was required how the power would reach the wheels or any technical specifications. It was as if a patent had been granted for a knife fork and spoon because it was the only time one had been applied for. Selden the patent holder was no longer in the picture.
The patent had changed hands several times and finally came to be held by the Electric Vehicle Company which was a New York company owned by Thomas Fortune Ryan and William C. Whitney and originally formed to operate a taxicab business. Ransom E. Olds Winton and about a dozen other Detroit automobile manufacturers were told that they were in fringing on the Selden patent by making automobiles. But Ryan and Whitney were not going to be unreasonable about it. They suggested that if each auto manufacturer paid a small royalty (1.25 per cent or $12.50 per thousand dollars) to a newly formed Automobile Manufacturer’s Association the association could satisfy the Electric Vehicle Company by paying them 60 per cent of this and could keep 40 percent for themselves for advertising public relations or anything else that would benefit the entire automobile manufacturing community. That sounded reasonable for what it said and it sounded even delightful on some second thoughts for what it didn’t say but what was implied: The members of the Automobile Manufacturer’s Association could determine their own membership; specifically they could refuse membership to anyone who didn’t meet their high standards.
Everybody but Ford and Thomas Jeffery (the manufacturer of Ramblers a firm which ultimately evolved into American Motors) belonged to the AMA. There are two stories one of which holds that Ford applied for member ship and was told by F L. Smith of Olds that his application “would not be favorably considered.” The other story the more credible is that Smith invited Henry Ford and his right hand man James Couzens to lunch to discuss Ford’s upcoming membership.
“Mr. Smith” James Couzens is reliably reported to have said “you can take Selden s patent and go to hell with it.” Smith shocked then looked at Henry Ford who said “You heard Couzens. Take us to court and see what happens.”
The Automobile Manufacturer’s Association vs. The Ford Motor Company was at that time in the courts. ( It stayed in the courts for eight years and was finally decided in Ford’s favor.) There was a warm spot in Henry Ford’s heart for anyone else having trouble with an association of manufacturers trying to cut everybody but themselves out of a fair share of the pie and the feeling was reciprocated by Harvey Firestone.
Ford moreover who truly believed in the free market where competing suppliers would bid for his business competitively was furious when all the members of the Tire Manufacturer’s Association submitted identical bids of $70 for a set of four tires and wheels.
Perhaps equally important Ford after testing decided that the Firestone tire and rim was the best thing around. When Firestone submitted a bid of $55 a set Ford placed an initial order for 2000 sets the largest order ever issued. With a sort of glow of mutual admiration Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone added some further details. After the initial order which called for delivery of 2000 sets in April 1906 Firestone would supply 4000 sets in May and an absolute minimum of 2000 sets in June.
They had a couple of weeks to gloat and then there came hard reality. Ford was selling if nothing else the “universal automobile” the idea that the customer was never far from a Ford dealer a Ford spare part and a Ford mechanic to put it on.
The Firestone operation while large (there were major branches in New York Chicago Boston Philadelphia Detroit and St. Louis and some additional dealers elsewhere) was not “everywhere.” Some purchasers of Ford cars with Firestone wheels and tires would be a good distance from a tire dealer.
Harvey Firestone bit the bullet (his other option was losing the Ford business) and went to the Tire Manufacturer’s Association hat in hand and politely asked for permission to build the inferior tires and to pay a royalty. With as much glee as Ford and Firestone had displayed when they had defied the Tire Manufacturer’s Association the Tire Manufacturer’s Association now told Firestone if he made so much as one tire on their patent they would take him to court and sue him for his last dime.
Harvey Firestone a man of some dignity did not respond publicly. If the story is true that behind his frosted glass office walls he said “Let them sue and be damned!” it never came out in public. But Firestone engineers quickly produced the necessary drawings which would result in a clincher tire to be installed on Fords where necessary and production soon began.
The legal wheels began to turn. Firestone was found liable for patent infringement on its internal wire tires. In payment of damages Firestone had to give up his patent rights on the continuous length tire to the Consolidated Rubber Tire Company.
But he was lucky with regard to his apparently intentional violation of patent with regard to the clincher tires. In a case brought by the C & J Tire Company against another tire company the court held that the patent had been intended for bicycle tires and thus had no application for auto tires. It would have made no sense to bring Firestone into court after that decision.
Firestone was home free.