Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, commonly known as Goodyear, is an American multinational tire manufacturer headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Since 2021, the company has been the world's third-largest tire manufacturer by annual revenue.
Goodyear manufactures tires for passenger vehicles, aviation, commercial trucks, military and police vehicles, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, race cars, and heavy off-road machinery. It also licenses the Goodyear brand to bicycle tire manufacturers, returning from a break in production between 1976 and 2015.
Founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling, the company was named after American Charles Goodyear, inventor of vulcanized rubber. The first Goodyear tires became popular because they were easily detachable and required little maintenance. Though Goodyear had been manufacturing airships and balloons since the early 1900s, the first Goodyear advertising blimp flew in 1925. Today, it is one of the most recognizable advertising icons in America.
The company is the sole tire supplier for NASCAR series and the most successful tire supplier in Formula One history, with more starts, wins, and constructors' championships than any other tire supplier. They pulled out of the sport after the 1998 season. Goodyear was the first global tire manufacturer to enter China when it invested in a tire manufacturing plant in Dalian in 1994. Goodyear was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average between 1930 and 1999. The company opened a new global headquarters building in Akron in 2013.
Retail history
Early history: 1898–1926
The first Goodyear factory opened in Akron, Ohio, in 1898. The company originally manufactured bicycle and carriage tires, rubber horseshoe pads, and poker chips, and grew with the advent of the automobile.In 1901, Goodyear founder Frank Seiberling provided Henry Ford with racing tires. In 1903, Goodyear president, chairman and CEO Paul Weeks Litchfield was granted a patent for the first tubeless automobile tire. In 1910, the company purchased an existing rubber factory in Bowmanville, Ontario, in Canada, which expanded their manufacturing outside of the United States for the first time.
In 1916, Litchfield found land in the Phoenix area suitable for growing long-staple cotton, which was needed to reinforce its rubber in tires. The 36,000 acres purchased were controlled by the Southwest Cotton Company, formed with Litchfield as president.
In late 1919, the United States, influenced by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, organised the creation of a "coal and steel state" under international protection which included the Upper Silesian Industrial Circle and the Ostrava–Karviná basin in the former Austrian Silesia. Because of opposition from France, the United States withdrew from supporting a Silesian state. This period was marked by tensions leading up to the 1921 Upper Silesia plebiscite.
In 1924, Litchfield forged a joint venture with the German Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Company to form the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation. From the late 1920s to 1940, the company worked with Goodyear to build two Zeppelins in the United States. The partnership continued even when Zeppelin was under Nazi control and only ended after World War II began.
Expansion: 1926–1970
On August 5, 1927, Goodyear had its initial public offering and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.By 1930, Goodyear had pioneered what would later become known as "tundra tires" for smaller aircraft—their so-called low inflation pressure "airwheel" aviation wheel-rim/tire sets were initially available in sizes up to 46 inches in diameter.
Over the next few decades, Goodyear grew to become a multinational corporation. It acquired their rival Kelly-Springfield Tire in 1935. During World War II Goodyear manufactured F4U Corsair fighter planes for the U.S. Military. Goodyear ranked 30th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. WWII forced the dissolution of the Goodyear-Zeppelin partnership in December 1940. By 1956 they owned and operated a nuclear processing plant in Ohio.
In 1944, Goodyear created a subsidiary in Mexico in a joint venture with Compañía Hulera, S.A. de C.V., Compañía Hulera Goodyear-Oxo, S.A. de C.V. or Goodyear-Oxo.
Goodyear opened a factory in Lurgan, Northern Ireland in 1967 to manufacture hoses, fan belts, conveyor belts, and other rubber products. It was immediately lauded as "Craigavon's industrial revolution" for providing critical employment in the area. A football team known as Goodyear F.C. is still currently active in the Mid-Ulster Football League despite the factory closing down in 1983. It was established by laborers of the Goodyear factory. They play in Goodyear's classic blue and yellow colours, and their badge is the Goodyear logo.
Radial tire transition
Goodyear is the only one of the five biggest tire firms among US tire manufacturers in 1970 to remain independent into the 21st century. Goodyear's success was partly due to the challenge posed by radial tire technology, and the varied responses. At the time, the entire US tire industry produced the older bias-ply technology. Estimates to fit factories with new machinery and tools for making the new product were between $600 million and $900 million. This was a substantial amount in a low margin business with sales revenue in the low billions. The US market was slowly shifting towards the radial tire, as had already been the case in Europe and Asia. In 1968, Consumer Reports, an influential American magazine, acknowledged the superiority of radial construction, which had been developed in 1946 by Michelin.When Charles J. Pilliod Jr. became CEO in 1974, he faced a major investment decision regarding the radial tire, which today has a market share of nearly 100%. Despite heavy criticism at the time, Pilliod invested heavily in new factories and tooling to build the radial tire. Sam Gibara, who headed Goodyear from 1996 to 2003, has noted that without the action of Pilliod, Goodyear "wouldn't be around today."
Sales for 1969 topped $3 billion. Five years later sales topped $5 billion and Goodyear operated in 34 countries. In 1978, the original Akron plant was converted into a Technical Center for research and design. By 1985, worldwide sales exceeded $10 billion.
Goodyear Aerospace, a holding that developed from the Goodyear Aircraft Company after World War II, designed a supercomputer for NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in 1979, the MPP. The subsidiary was sold in 1987 to the Loral Corporation as a result of restructuring.
In 1987, Goodyear formed a business partnership with Canadian tire retailer Fountain Tire.
Diversification and Goldsmith affair 1986
In the 1980s, incoming Goodyear CEO Robert E. Mercer argued that the tire and automobile-related businesses that formed the core of Goodyear to that date were slow growing and a handicap. He set a strategy "to get away from the cyclical nature of the automobile business through mergers or purchase of businesses unrelated to tires or vehicles."In 1983, Goodyear acquired the natural gas company Celeron Corporation in exchange for stock valued at more than $740 million. It went on to invest heavily in gas exploration including the 1,200 mile crude oil "All American" pipeline from California to Texas. The project was initially estimated to cost $600 million but ultimately cost almost $1 billion.
In October 1986 British financier James Goldsmith in conjunction with the investment group Hanson purchased 11.5% of Goodyear's outstanding common stock. This was viewed as a greenmail attack by some, and as shareholder activism by Goldsmith, who viewed the company's move into areas far removed from tire development production and sale as commercially ill-advised and wanted the company to divest, especially, its oil interests which he viewed as depressing the value of the company.
On November 20, 1986, Goodyear acquired all of the stock held by Goldsmith's group at an above-market price of $49.50 per share. Goodyear also made a tender offer for up to 40 million shares of its stock from other shareholders at $50 per share. The tender offer resulted in Goodyear buying 40,435,764 shares of stock in February 1987.
As a result of the stock buyback, Goodyear took a charge of $224.6 million associated with a massive restructuring plan. It sold its Goodyear Aerospace business to Loral Corporation for $588 million and its motor wheel business to Lemmerz Inc. for $175 million. Two subsidiaries involved in agricultural products, real estate development, and a resort hotel in Arizona were sold for $220.1 million. The company also sold the Celeron gas and oil corporation. In 1998, the All American Pipeline, Celeron Gathering, and Celeron Trading and Transportation were sold, largely completing what Goldsmith's hostile takeover had suggested good management should do. In the years following 1987, the company invested in its tire business. President Tom Barrett succeeded Chairman Robert Mercer in 1989, and began a process of modernizing and expanding Goodyear plants in cities like Lawton, Oklahoma, Napanee, Canada, Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Scottsboro, Alabama. In the 2000s, the move of business into low-wage countries, facilitated by GATT, resulted in plants across North America being shuttered, for instance Cumberland, Maryland; New Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Windsor, Vermont were closed.
1990 to present
The last major restructuring of the company took place in 1991. Goodyear hired Stanley Gault, former CEO of Rubbermaid, to expand the company into new markets. The moves resulted in 12,000 employees being laid off.In 2005, Titan Tire purchased the farm tire business of Goodyear, and manufactures Goodyear agricultural tires under license. This acquisition included the plant in Freeport, Illinois.
In the summer of 2009, the company announced it would close its tire plant in the Philippines as part of a strategy to address uncompetitive manufacturing capacity globally by the end of the third quarter of that year.
Goodyear announced plans to sell the assets of its Latin American off-road tire business to Titan Tire for $98.6 million, including the plant in São Paulo, Brazil and a licensing agreement that allows Titan to continue manufacturing under the Goodyear brand. This deal is similar to Titan's 2005 purchase of Goodyear's US farm tire assets.
In 2011, more than 70 years after the dissolution of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, it is announced that Goodyear would partner with Zeppelin again to build more zeppelins together.
In 2018, Goodyear and Bridgestone announced the creation of TireHub, a joint wholesale distribution network across the United States. At the same time, Goodyear also announced that it was ending its distribution relationship with American Tire Distributors, which is the largest tire wholesaler in the US.
In 2018, Goodyear was ordered to pay $40.1 million to J. Walter Twidwell, who claimed he developed mesothelioma because of exposure to asbestos. After the trial, Goodyear asked the New York Supreme Court for a new trial. Goodyear attorney James Lynch said Goodyear did not receive proper consideration from the jury. Lynch said that the other side's attorneys engaged in character assassinations against expert witnesses. During closing remarks, the attorneys for Twidwell put up a slide with the heads of Goodyear's expert witnesses pasted onto "insulting caricatures."
In December 2018, Goodyear ceased operations in Venezuela due a lack of materials and rising costs resulting from hyperinflation.
In February 2021, Goodyear announced that it would acquire the Cooper Tire & Rubber Company for $2.5 billion. The transaction closed in the second half of 2021.
In July 2024, Goodyear announced the sale of its off-the-road tire business to Yokohama Rubber Company for $905 million.
In January 2025, the firm announced the sale of the Dunlop brand to Sumitomo Rubber Industries for $701 million.