(clearing throat)
(breathing in)
- It's Bridgestone, or nothing.
(thumping)
(crunching)
(clears throat)
- [Male] Action.
- So Bridgestone is a combination of two words,
bridge and stone.
A bridge is something that you put over water
and stone is something that you can throw at somebody
in case you really wanna hurt them.
So Bridgestone Tire was founded by a man
named Shojiro Ishibashi in 1931.
Shojiro was an entrepreneur.
At 17 years old, he took over his family clothing business.
He specialized in making all sorts of different stuff
for feet and clothing.
Shojiro had an idea, an idea that he wanted to get
into the tire rubber making business,
because, in Japan, it really hadn't taken off
as much as a lot of other countries had taken off with it.
Countries like the United States of America
was already getting heavily involved in motorized vehicles
at the time, and Japan was kind of well, behind.
So Shojiro saw an opportunity to grow the tire business
by founding his own company.
The money that was funded for Bridgestone at the time
came from his original clothing business with his family.
And, by the time that he actually got involved
into tires, they didn't really actually have a tire company.
The first Bridgestone tire was made on April ninth of 1930
under the sock division of Shojiro's company at the time.
It wasn't until a whole year later
that the actual Bridgestone tire name was founded
and created for the tire rubber making business.
At the time, there wasn't a whole lot that you could base
your company off of, you can't go on Google
and research how to improve management techniques,
when you've never really done a business like this before.
And Bridgestone just continued to survive
and tried to grow up every single thing
as fast as they could.
But because of Shojiro and the way
that Bridgestone was built, they just focused
on trying to be the most truthful to themselves
and making the best company they could based on
the Japanese values that their old companies have had.
Now, if you're listening and you're like 18 years old,
and it sounds really cheesy to talk about
traditional Japanese values,
you probably aren't taking it too seriously.
But, if you are in management or know of operations,
you know how insane the Japanese culture can be
when it comes to running businesses
and being involved with family.
And because the Japanese culture was so strict
and just so prominent in their business for Bridgestone,
they continued to push through with what they knew
what they had to do, which involved buckling down,
working harder and sometimes, just hammering in
until they figured out a product that would work.
And it wasn't until the forties that they started to see
a whole lot of growth.
Things didn't really get much easier for Bridgestone
in the forties, because if you don't remember,
there's a couple of things that happened in Japan
between 1941 and 1945.
Bridgestone was hit with all sorts of war time effort,
and what turned out to be a tire rubber manufacturing plant
turned into a war time manufacturing plant
during World War Two.
Because of its international affairs,
a lot of its international assets were seized,
and Bridgestone was left with a lot of crumbling factories
due to just aerial attacks and everything in between
that World War Two had, a pretty much no money.
Between losing their Tokyo headquarters
and international assets, Bridgestone didn't seem
like it was going to survive for very long.
But, then going back to what Bridgestone was good at,
Shojiro just decided that they were gonna hunker down
and go back to what made Bridgestone Bridgestone,
which was making tires and revolutionizing what they knew
in the Japanese market that other companies couldn't do.
So, they got involved with bicycle tires,
and introduced the rayon cord tire in 1951
to push ahead the tire industry into something new.
Bridgestone desperately needed something,
and they introduced the rayon cord tire,
which ended up being an extremely successful tire
in the early fifties.
By 1953, Bridgestone had managed to acquire
over ten million yen, which, at the time,
was a pretty good chunk of change,
considering that their company had been continuously
getting beaten down by everything around them.
Bridgestone continued to grow into the 1960s
and in 1961, they finally realized
they needed a new management style.
Now there was nothing wrong with the way
Shojiro was doing it, but the company had grown to a point
where they need something new.
And Bridgestone continued to capitalize on everything
that they knew that they could succeed with,
because they really were the underdog at the time.
Yeah, they were huge, they had factories all over the place,
they were doing all sorts of crazy stuff,
but in the grand scheme of things,
Bridgestone did have a lot to work off of
in terms to who they were gonna compete with
when they eventually got back into the international market,
and it wasn't looking good.
So, Bridgestone was finally certainly getting a little bit
ahead of the competition, but if there's ever a way
that Bridgestone could roll any more bad luck,
they did it again.
In 1973, you had the oil crisis
that shut the entire rubber industry
and put the entire ti... (laughs)
put the entire tire market.
(swoosh)
put the entire tire market at an incredible standstill.
Bridgestone had money to work with at the time,
but ultimately they really didn't have anything
that they could do.
They ultimately ended up developing research
and R&D departments because they didn't wanna make tires
and the entire company pretty much stood still
and tried to manage the 1973 oil crisis as well as it could.
These guys had like terrible luck.
And finally, Bridgestone released
something entirely new, the RE 47.
The RE 47 was an ultra-high performance tire,
it was a Potenza series tire, which is still a line
that Bridgestone uses to this day.
And for the time, it was actually pretty monumental
considering that there weren't a lot of options
when it came to ultra-high performance
back in the late seventies.
Finally, Bridgestone was finally starting
to come up with products that helped aid
in the competition against other huge companies
in the world.
And while all seemed well and good,
Shojiro ultimately passed away
in September eleventh of 1976.
This led the company and the board of directors
pretty much to Ishibashi and his co partner
to lead the Bridgestone company until today.
Bridgestone grew overseas and inevitably began
to acquire other tire businesses in the world.
Now you have to remember in the tire market,
there is a ton of competition,
especially when you're considering companies
like Goodyear and Sumitomo.
They just wanted to be the top three,
they didn't even want to be number one.
And, in 1988, Firestone was officially acquired
by the Bridgestone name brand, Firestone Bridgestone.
Firestone was acquired by Bridgestone,
they essentially got a hold of pretty much everything,
because that's what Bridgestone needed
to essentially go from being in ant place
wherever they were, to third to second place.
They became of the largest tire manufacturers in the world
because of the Firestone acquisition.
They didn't close any plants, they didn't do anything
to really change the game, they just needed more.
And Firestone gave them the opportunity
to grow into one of the biggest companies in the world.
Bridgestone then entered the motor sports era
and became involved in pretty much everything
from Formula One to the Indianapolis 500.
Bridgestone had a lot that they could work with,
and they just wanted to continue to grow.
But one of the coolest things about the fact
that Bridgestone was essentially getting bigger,
is that they didn't face a lot of the internal struggles
that a lot of other companies did at the time.
Bridgestone was built on these family values
that Shojiro desperately wanted the company to thrive off of
and because of his, essentially, integration
throughout the birth of this company,
it stays true still to this day.
Bridgestone ultimately got involved in everything
from passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles,
specialty tires, and commercial tires,
because, well, they could.
And they had plants all over the world,
whether you're looking at Central America, South America,
Europe, Asia, or Japan itself,
because of their acquisition with Firestone,
Bridgestone could make anything and everything.
And while their pretense is the most common,
their Blizzaks are the best.
Number one.
Don't even ask me.
Don't even question my decision.
Blizzaks are the best for everybody
that lives in Wisconsin, WS 80s, or bust.
Because winter tires
are the best tires you can buy, hands down.
Blizzak, if you're out there, WS80.
(thumps)
(claps)
(bleeps)
(laughing)
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So all you have to do is drop a comment below
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That seems pretty simple, right?
So we hope you enjoyed, check out fitmentindustries.com
if you're interested in picking up Bridgestone tires
or if you're just looking for real tire suspension
or air lift, we have over 30,000 products,
but I'm Alan for Fitment Industries,
we'll see you later.
Peace.