Original photo by Alexandre ROUSSEL/ Alamy Stock Photo
In the restaurant business, there is no greater honor than the Michelin star. Awarded on a ranking from one to three, Michelin stars are the standard of greatness when it comes to fine dining. Chefs pin their reputations on them, and having (or not having) them can make or break a business. So it might seem strange to discover that this culinary accolade is intimately entwined with… car tires. The story starts back in 1900, when brothers Andre and Edouard Michelin, founders of the Michelin tire company, created the Michelin Guide — a booklet full of useful information for French motorists. The free Michelin Guide included maps, lists of nearby gas stations and amenities, basic tire maintenance information, and various road-ready adventures. The hope was that these guides would inspire longer journeys at a time when the automotive age was just beginning, which in turn would mean selling more tires.
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It's a factIn the early days of automobiles, tires were considered the dressing of a car’s wheel, so the name derives from the word “attire.” Originally, tires were made from solid rubber attached to a metal rim, but the result was a bumpy ride. The first air-filled tires were patented in 1845.
But the Michelin Guide might be a forgotten relic if not for two events — one big, one small. The first event was World War I, which ravaged France and forced the Michelin brothers to stop publishing for a few years. The other was when Andre Michelin visited a tire shop around the same time and saw his free Michelin Guides doing the undignified work of propping up a bench. To help raise the guide’s prestige (and also help motorists explore Europe again following the war), the brothers reintroduced the handbooks in 1920, featuring more in-depth hotel and restaurant information — and instead of being free, they now cost seven francs. Within a few years, Michelin also recruited “mystery diners” to improve its restaurant reviews (they still work undercover), and in 1926, they began handing out single Michelin stars to the very best restaurants. Five years later, Michelin upped the amount of possible stars to three, and they have continued searching for the world’s best food in the nearly a century since. Today, the guides — and stars — cover more than 30 territories across three continents.
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The Michelin Man is known in France as ______.
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The Michelin Man is known in France as Bibendum.
Michelin made a tire that never goes flat.
Tires haven’t changed much over the course of a century. Recommended PSI (pounds per square inch) and types of rubber have come and gone, but the basic equation has remained the same: air + rubber. Yet contrary to popular wisdom, Michelin and other tire brands are reinventing the wheel by making a tire that never goes flat. The idea, borrowed from designs used on smaller machines like riding lawn mowers, is an airless tire that uses flexible spokes rather than air to carry the load. Because these tires operate sans inflation, they’re impervious to punctures, uneven wear, and many other air-centric failures. Michelin estimates that these futuristic tires could save 20% (or about 200 million) tires from ending up in landfills each year. The biggest hurdle? They’re expensive — so it might be a while before everyone’s zipping around on these futuristic wheels.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
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