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Show i rm THROUGH THIRTY -FOUR CENTURIES WITH TIREST l3 Snaked First, Maybe, Then Leather, Iron, Now The Cord and Balloon vj1 T ETfe chariot shows one of the earliest successful attempt to cushion wheal. It was fotmd in the tomb of Yuan and Tuau, VtrJh1 parents of Tiy, the wif of Amenhotep III, king of Egypt, i'7 3,400 years ago. The tires are fash- li Vt ioaed of strips of M V leather, stained j '-'tfVp-. red, binding two J P? thicknesses of i tjyp leather padding. . . ' rxr" ' Bfci chariot $howl one of the earliest raceessfnl attempts to y , i . r- fc TV I x' Cushion wheeU. It was found in the tomb of Yuaa and Tuau, y,v , . -,"; Vv;j KJ ts5 of Tiy. th vif 1 Amenhotep III, king of Egypt, ym. fa?-A.-l . ,y bj fl, , ' . i 3,400 year, ago. .-a PUQjSiA 3 fcC? N - ' XV l C) 1 T Qv-C; The tires are fvuh- .?!22!5 ' UTA-j W-'Z J " S. 9 ' . L tV? ioned of strips of ff H 1 C fl , tl ? ' C i Jlj i 'l V-" Thotos Courtesy KcUr-arlne!d Tire Connanj. " " ) one of our ancestors of the V Wf V 7 rS"' tired wxth Sohd rubber bolted onto -.V V '-, Stone Age who built up a large V J V rre- wooden a-A.e; ondJ " .""t" ' I trade by winding serpents around . r I I w7 Shaker," a velocipede of 1864, tvrea, ! Bolid stone wheels, as tires. There- 1846 S 'V'S'VwW at first, rcUh iron and laUr (18S8), i iTjS STORY has been handed , j OftPCJl A down through the ages about ; 1 1 ff;" ij J- one of our ancestors of the ' Stone Age who built up a large .( trade by winding serpents around : Bolid stone wheels, as tires. The re- 1 : k . suit Is said to have looked more or 1 P less like our balloon equipped disc 1 ' wheels of today. Inasmuch as there ; ' tTSl ore no witnesses living today, the . ; BuitS story will have to be accepted or ij ' left, as 11 think best i However, in 1846 a Scotchman, named Thompson, patented this v Egyptian idea. His tire was a crude 'tJlA contrivance a leather cover bolted on wooden rim of the wheel, rjw The tire proved to be impractical , and was soon abandoned. Thomp son had foresight, though, for his patent also included a rubber inner tube on the same principle as those r ' -A used today in effect the first pneu-matic pneu-matic tire. ftrg In 1S71 Thompson bnilt several ; .-fe-Vf road steamers of the traction type V) and equipped them with solid rubber rub-ber tires five inches thick and ten I "fZZ? inches wide. These were the pioneer I ) heavy truck tires. ijfeJOg The two-wheeled "Bone-Shaker" I Tv9)) Y or velocipede was introduced in 1 '; i Paris ln 1864 or 865- This torture macliine was originally equipped . 'y with flat iron tires and hickory ,! ' wheels. Later, solid rubber tires i- made of flat strips of rubber nailed I to the wheel framcn were used, I6SS The first practical flexible pneumatic tire, an immediate ancestor of the present day cord and balloon, invented in ISS8 and first used in Ireland and England. ble-tube, detachable was brought out, also held by pressure against the rim. This in tum was followed bv single tubes and puncture treads, i "in 1302 a corrugated "clincher" Thompson's Road Steamur (18T1), (A ird with solid rubber, bolted onto -jf V , wooden wheels; and a "Bone-Shaker," "Bone-Shaker," a velocipede of 186, tired, . at first, icith iron and later (18S8), j as shown at the right flat strips of rubber nailed to wooden rim ofL ttisOi j wheel, but quite unsuccessfully. jiTOrfjunQ tire was produced. Also a single j tube diagonally wrapped thread type which reduced the weight and gave more resiliency. Theji for a . j short while a laced-up doubled tubed tired gained popularity. .Vffc?S0 These various tj-jies of enshion - ' yi 'J tires were cautiously received in the r - ' United States and it was not until j about 1894 that they were really ac- ! cepted. The improvement of the tire has been rapid since then, culminat- f , r i-j-" , ing in the present day distinct type 1 X KK I ' i . of automobile tire, built up by con- fajp stant experiment; Unproved by ex- 'FjT i I perience and reaching its highest de- w V, ; velopment in the modern flexible cord tire, with bead construction 'z7'. j looped into the fabric itself. Cords A-Ji I of this type give a long, uninter- JfOgj1 j rupted mileage, with great riding ' v TfcJJ j comfort and perfect traction. A tire ' ' kJ having the integral bead construe- V A Hon has an extra thick, tough tread, j jfjl and engages the road with ease and . ! t. silence whether a cord tire or the '"fi.JtT' newest of all the balloon tire. ' ' 'At left, the earliest of solid rubber rub-ber bicycle tires. At top, two sections sec-tions of the tire used on the "Phantom," "Phan-tom," the bicycle de luxe of 18SS. Tim tire was the first mechanically fastened solid rubber tire. The Thompson lire of 184-6, oooce, was but without success. With the advent of the siiall-wheeled siiall-wheeled bicycle cycling was taken np more generally and the question of vibration became an important one. The "Phantom" bicycle, the pride of 1869, was the last of the old type. Radical changes in bicycle and tire construction followed. Wood was abandoned and wire suspension sus-pension wheels were introduced. Thick, solid rubber tires were vulcanised vul-canised on a steel ribbon, not quite meeting at the ends. Two nuts were fixed to the steel ribbon, near the .joint of the tire. These were .joined together and held to the rim with a right hand and a left hand screw. This was the first complete mechanically mechan-ically fastened tire of the solid type. It was not until 18S8 that a veterinary vet-erinary from Belfast, Ireland, invented in-vented the first practical pneumatic & leather cover bolted on the wooden wood-en rim, and the first patented tire. It did not work. A bove at right, the modern 1925 flexible cord with the looped bead construction the latest advance on the 3,i00 year path of cushioned wheels. tire, which gave new life to the bicycle bi-cycle and smoothed the way for the automobile tires which were to follow fol-low in the early nineties. The veterinarian's first tire con-, sisted of an air tube made of sheet rubber, around which wrapped a canvas bag whose sides overlapped. The rim was made of a circular piece of wood. On top of this tire was fitted a strip of rubber serving as a cover and taking the road wear. The whole thing was not comely or finished with mechanical accuracy, but it did the trick, cut down vibration vibra-tion and increased speed. The first detachable pneumatic was a "clincher," patented in 1S90. There was a steel rim with slightly upturned edges, an arch of canvas-lined canvas-lined rubber as a cover and an inner in-ner tube of mbbcr and canvas. Shortly after this a wired-on. dou- |