Tue Dunlop Tire Company

Dunlop is a tire manufacturing company that was founded in 1889 after John Dunlop obtained his initial patent for pneumatic tires. These were mainly used for bicycles in those days and the invention of the pneumatic tire was a result of John Dunlop seeing the difficulty his son had in riding his bicycle with the then solid rubber tires. Production for car tires started in 1900 and expanded all over the world helped by the availability of rubber from its own rubber plantations in Malaysia and Ceylon. The company was taken over by Goodyear and Sumitomo in 1985 and a major portion of its worldwide operations were sold to local or international companies.