Palms Springs, California, has the towering Cabazon Dinosaurs; Margate, New Jersey, is home to renowned pachyderm Lucy the Elephant; and Hayward, Wisconsin, lays claim to the world’s largest Muskie. Detroit, yeah, well, we got a big ’effin tire. Known officially and affectionately as the “Uniroyal Giant Tire,” the landmark, which is located alongside I-94 just outside of Detroit, is celebrating its silver anniversary. Although it may lack the artistic nuance and catchy nicknames of its fellow roadside landmarks, you’d be hard-pressed to argue that any of its contemporaries share as deep of an intrinsic bond with the municipalities they inhabit.
-To be fair, the story of the Giant Tire starts not in Detroit, but some 600 miles east in Queens, New York, at the 1964 World’s Fair (yes, the very same one where the Ford Mustang made its world debut). With a veritable orgy of postwar consumerism in full swing, corporations were spending fortunes on advertising and promotion, and with a projected 50 million visitors expected, the World’s Fair was ground zero for physical advertising. The folks at Uniroyal Tire Company (although incorporated as Uniroyal in the early 1960s, the name US Royal Tires appeared on the original iteration due to its then still high brand recognition) wanted in on the action, so they commissioned the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the same firm that designed the Empire State Building, to create a tire-themed Ferris wheel suitable for the midway. Constructed of a fiberglass shell surrounding a rotating assembly, the wheel consisted of 24 barrel-shaped gondolas—each carrying four people—that rotated around the circumference of the tire. By the fair’s end, over 2 million visitors had ridden the wheel, including noted celebrity Telly Savalas, and Jacqueline Kennedy and children Caroline and John Jr.
When the fair came to an end, Uniroyal had the tire broken down into 188 sections and shipped to Detroit for reassembly, sans most of the Ferris-wheel bits. (Somewhat ironically, Uniroyal’s largest production facility was located in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, but Detroit got the tire. Plus, at 80 feet tall with a 6-inch-deep tread and tipping the scales around 12 tons, if the Giant Tire ever got on a roll it could crush Wisconsin’s beloved fiberglass fish.) Back in Detroit, it was reassembled at the company’s sales headquarters in the neighboring community of Allen Park, directly adjacent to the I-94 thoroughfare.
-For the next 30 years or so, that’s pretty much how the Big Tire sat, watching over travelers on I-94, standing as a landmark to airport-bound Detroiters that their exit was nearing. Save for a brief appearance in the video for Paul McCartney and Wings 1976 hit, “Silly Love Songs,” the Giant Tire kept a pretty low profile. (More than 35 years later, Detroit’s Kid Rock would also include the big tire in a rock video, giving the Kid and McCartney something to chat about in the unlikely event they ever cross paths.) French tire giant Michelin completed a buyout of Uniroyal in 1990, and according to Ray Fischenich, Uniroyal Brand Manager, current Michelin president Pete Selleck rode the Ferris wheel in his youth.
-Then, in 1994 the giant tire was remodeled with neon lighting and a new hubcap to bring it up to date. Just few years later, a giant nail was imbedded in the tire to draw attention to Uniroyal’s NailGuard self-sealing tire technology. When the nail was removed, Uniroyal gave it to the city of Allen Park, which in turn put it up for sale with the proceeds to benefit the a local historical society.
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Eventually all tires begin to wear, and in 2003 the Giant Tire underwent a million-dollar makeover. The inside structure was sandblasted, more than 30 steel beams were replaced, the base was rebuilt, and the hubcap painted silver. The neon lighting that was added in 1994 was replaced with reflective lettering to illuminate “Uniroyal” and, as a sign of the times, “Uniroyal.com” was added in reflective lettering.
-As part of its 50th birthday celebration, Uniroyal invited the media out to view the tire and up close and personal, climb inside to check out its steel skeleton, and make terrible tire puns–”you should see the size of lug nuts.” Interesting, but the real magic is on the outside. Let’s just hope it stands for another 50 years.
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via Agya
