X-Nico

9 unusual facts about Firestone Tire and Rubber Company


1969 Talladega 500

The tire company Firestone dropped out of the sport before race day due to the tire problems.

Automobile Products of India

The company, since the 1960s, manufactured brake linings under a licence from Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, U.S.A. A similar agreement was executed with Fichtel & Sachs A.G. (nowZF Sachs), of West Germany in November 1972 for the manufacture of F & S clutches from 1972 for a period of 5 years.

Firestone High School

Opened in 1963, Firestone is named after the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Harvey Firestone.

FirstEnergy Stadium–Cub Cadet Field

Originally dedicated on October 22, 1936 as Lee R. Jackson Field it was named for the former chairman of the University of Akron Board of Directors and retired president of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, Lee R. Jackson.

Harriman, Ripley and Company

In the mid-1970s, it sold a 25 percent stake to Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, renaming itself Drexel Firestone, which evolved into Drexel Burnham Lambert after the 1976 absorption of the boutique investment research firm William D. Witter.

Howard A. Coffin

He worked as a representative for the book publishers, Ginn & Co., 1901-1911; controller, Warren Motor Car Company, Detroit, Michigan, 1911-1913; manager, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, of Michigan, 1913-1918; secretary, Detroit Pressed Steel Company, 1918-1921; assistant to president, Cadillac Motor Company, of Detroit, 1921-1925; vice president and later president, White Star Refining Company, 1925-1933; general manager, Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, 1933-1946.

Ralph Camargo

He was also well known for being "the voice of Dynamic," narrating many short films in the 1950s and 1960s for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.

Samuel D. Wonders

From 1913-1929, Samuel D. Wonders worked as an industrial engineer for various companies in Ohio and Massachusetts, the best known of which was Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.

Sandy Gbandi

Born near the Firestone rubber plantation, Gbandi and his family fled from his native Liberia to Houston, Texas following the outbreak of the First Liberian Civil War in 1989, when he was just six years old.


1995 IndyCar season

At the pit entry Pruett had the lead and beat Unser by a carlength, giving Firestone Tires their first IndyCar win since the 1970s, and Patrick's first win since Nazareth in September of 1989 with Emerson Fittipaldi.

Akron Wingfoots

In the late 1930s, Goodyear, Firestone, General Electric, and other companies with similar Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Elite teams decided to form the National Basketball League (NBL) to showcase their teams.

Firestone Natural Rubber Company

In November 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund, representing "tappers" (workers who extract latex from rubber trees) on the Liberian plantation, filed an Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) case in US District Court in California against Bridgestone (parent company owning Firestone), alleging “forced labor, the modern equivalent of slavery”, on the Firestone Plantation in Harbel, Liberia.

Governance and Economic Management Assistance Program

GEMAP was designed as economic 'triage' for a hemorrhaging (= 'bleeding') country, and in that narrow view, it can be considered a success, partly due to the 50% year to year increases in government revenue, the government's review of contracts and concessions (and renegotiation of the Mittal and Firestone contracts), reforms in the timber and diamond sectors, and the general high-level commitment to improved financial controls.

Joe Leonard

Of their three cars in 1973 only Andretti in 5th place would make the top 10, they alost their Samsonite sponsorship at the end of the year and Firestone (Vel's Parnelli Jones tire supplier since in the USAC National Championship since their debut in 1967) was cutting back their racing funding before pulling out completely at the end of the year.


see also