Rubber Spokes Give Bounce to Airless Safety Tires (May, 1938)
Filed under: Automotive, Origins — @ 11:09 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: May, 1938
| Buy on Ebay
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: May, 1938
| Buy on Ebay
These look an aweful lot like the new Tweels introduced by Michelin last year. Although I doubt the Tweels are made of wood…
Rubber Spokes Give Bounce to Airless Safety Tires
Hard wood, embedded in rubber, forms the rim of a new safety tire invented by J. V. Martin of Garden City, N. Y. Said to be more resilient and lighter than pneumatic types, the safety tire has hoops of hickory incased in rubber and fitted with crisscross spokes of ribbed rubber. Punctureproof and blowout-proof, the airless tires absorbed practically all vertical movement when a springless test car drove over four-inch blocks strung along a concrete road in a recent trial, it is claimed.
“Major revolutions in mobility may come along only once in a hundred years,” said Terry Gettys, president of Michelin Americas Research and Development Center in Greenville, S.C. “But a new century has dawned.”
Or twice…
Comment by Stannous — December 13, 2006 @ 6:49 pm
Some years later but look at this tire by Michelin on the new segway prototype.
http://www.gizmag.com/picture......695141.jpg
They have made a car tire version too.
http://www.pixelydixel.com/img/tweel2.jpg
Comment by marczinger — January 24, 2007 @ 10:34 am
i want data tire airless for learning.
thank you.
Comment by Toun — July 27, 2008 @ 12:21 am
Seems to me like someone (or some company) is potentially suppressing a technology that is long overdue, and could save millions of dollars in energy lost due to under inflation alone. And that’s not to mention all the lives saved.
Comment by FredO (yfred,com) — August 22, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
I actually have two off a 1939 Packard that were give to me. One complete and one in pieces with some missing. I also have an aluminum mold half for the spokes on the tires I have. The guy who gave it me knew captain James V martin
Comment by James — September 26, 2008 @ 5:25 pm