Dunlop
In 1888 Dunlop was founded by John Boyd Dunlop in Belfast, N.Ireland. Dunlop watched his young son struggling to ride his tricycle with solid rubber tyres on a cobbled street . It was slow and looked uncomfortable for the little boy. Dunlop decided to try and make it easier for his son, by wrapping the tyres of tricycle in thin rubber sheets. Then he glued them together , and filled the tyres with air using a football pump . Dunlop's founder had thus developed the world's first air-cushion system and laid the foundation for the first pneumatic ( air-filled ) tyre. The starting gun had gone for the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. . Ltd. . It took less than a year for Dunlop's invention to go out on the racetrack for motorcycles. Using Dunlop's pneumatic tyres a novice rider could easily beat the more experienced ones. 1890 Dunlop opened the first tyre plant in Dublin, and in 1898 the business was moved to England and then distribute it to the U.S. and Japan. Dunlop quickly grew to a global multinational company with their tyres manufactured and sold worldwide. Thanks to Dunlop's extensive experience in motorcycle racing with impressive successes behind him Dunlop is now a very prestigious name among motorcycle enthusiasts.
