- So people have been telling me that I'm like
the calmer version of Donut Media which is like,
just because I don't have facial hair
and I don't have a Dodge tattoo.
I mean, he has a nice collection of hats, I suppose.
And now I'm being called like the Lioness Tech Tips
of the automotive scene, that's rude.
I don't even see the resemblance,
because I am my own person dammit.
And I'm Alex from Fitment Industries.
Alex dot FI, and you are watching Fitment Industries.
That's the worst intro I could possibly ever make for this.
But today we're talking about the tire company
that everyone holds right at the top of the hill for-
Wait, I was going to say koala.
That everybody holds at the top of the hill,
the echelon of quality: Pirelli Tire.
Pirelli is a multinational company, based in Milan, Italy,
that was founded way back in 1872
by a man named Giovanni Battista Pirelli.
Giovanni Battista Pirelli, I can't even do
an Italian accent if you paid me to
so we're just going to stick to English.
More of an North, North-Western,
Central-Western, Wisconsin accent.
Anyway, this man had a history of struggles and challenges
because in 1860, he was only 12 years old
when he fought with Giuseppe Garibaldi
in the Battles of Brescia and Mentana.
Once he was older, he went through schooling
and he eventually graduated in 1870.
His teacher pushed him to go into the rubber industry
as Giovanni had a unique interest in entrepreneurship,
and he was still very young.
When he was battling it out he was 12 years old.
As Pirelli launched, it was originally
dubbed G.B. Pirelli & C.
Giovanni was one of the first major players
to the rubberized game in Italy,
and quickly grew with its competition
being not too far away.
The 19th Century was massive for
the rubber and tire industry,
and Pirelli was going into it saying, I can do this.
The tire champion began its life not in tires
but in rubber processing and scuba diving
rebreather elastic goods.
At the beginning of the company's life,
they were involved in everything they could be.
Including things like telegraph cables,
not telephone cables, that's later,
that was before our time actually,
bicycle tires, and then finally automobile tires.
Pirelli began to make headway with receiving contracts
from the Italian Royal Army, in 1875,
to produce 16 rubber widgets for telegraph poles.
And that's where it really started to grow.
The Pirelli name grew with it's business,
as factories began to pop up, carrying the Pirelli name.
The Pirelli name lost a couple letters
during the liquidations and acquisitions
in the early times of it's life.
Changing from the G.B. Pirelli & C, to just Pirelli & C
as a limited shares company.
And there's a lot of history that goes into
how the company essentially formed on the back end
for investments and stuff like that,
but it's actually quite quite boring.
Pirelli would see a rubber band production line
for carriages, in 1885, and the first tire for Velocipedes,
which is really just a fancy name for an early bicycle,
but I didn't look how to pronounce it before the video.
But you can fool your friends with
that word if you'd like, in 1894.
Pirelli was essentially the British
when it came to expansion.
But before they could spread,
like a cold in a pre-school cafeteria,
Pirelli had to handle workers strikes and factory rights,
just like everyone else.
But once they got that handled...
Golden.
Right out of the gate, they were growing
as fast as humanly possible.
They found themselves in popular countries
like Spain, England, Argentina.
The tire market was already competitive with other brands
like Michelin, Firestone, and Goodyear,
and it was really popular especially in the United States.
It wasn't essentially like Pirelli
was one of the first or one of the biggest,
but it definitely had something to prove
when it came to the first couple decades
of the business starting.
But Pirelli did also have something up their sleeve
that made the company nearly blindside
it's international competition.
Artists.
Yeah I know, it's a little bit weird
because like that wasn't a thing back then,
but Pirelli was like what if we became that sexy,
like brand, that people want to follow.
Like they were like the hype brand of the early 1900's.
The marketing material for Pirelli exclusively
was something that just floored people.
They had ads that made the company
look modern and futuristic, but not too futuristic.
And it made people wonder just who
the (bleep) was Pirelli Tire.
And it was at that point that Pirelli started
to really find comfort in it's own brand and marketing.
It was the art and style that Pirelli wanted.
It was the beginning of Pirelli dabbling in the thought
that their company would be more than just a tire producer,
but rather, like a style and image
that gleamed off that yellow and red logo.
If you go back, you can find all the memorabilia
of Pirelli being involved in everything trendy,
in the early 1900's, that is insanely expensive.
But that's besides the point.
1922, they went public in the Milan Stock Exchange
and was initially invested with control group polling's
and lots of very exciting things
that we talked about before.
And no offense to Pirelli, but we really don't-
we really just don't want to talk about
share traded U.S. market shares and acquisitions and stuff.
Paired with Pirelli Cord and Superflex tire,
in 1924, began to give Pirelli an edge
to the already tight competition.
The Superflex success came across
from it's capabilities of handling
high speed damage without breaking,
which was still extremely common
in the tire industry in the early 1900's.
You would see that tire help Gastone Peri
win the International Grand Prix in 1925.
And that's when Pirelli not only was involved
in the marketing aspect of being
the super cool, hip, trendy kid,
aka Eric of Fitment Industries,
in the international market, but that's when Pirelli truly
began to shine in the Motorsport market segment as well.
Because they were just coming out of nowhere,
doing things nobody else has ever done.
As years passed, individuals like Giovanni passed away,
and his sons Piero and Alberto began
to take the mantle of responsibilities.
Piero Pirelli greatly assisted in the company's
telephone service and telecommunications project,
while Alberto traveled the world
and handled international affairs.
And that one sounds like a way more fun job.
Alberto was very interested in every big,
long titled committee you could imagine
that would look good on any resume,
if resumes were a thing back then.
Over time, Pirelli began to grow into
making proper tires for the right applications.
We would see the Stella Bianca
that made Pirelli stand out and nearly helped them through
the great pending international hardships
that would be coming through in times.
Even though the 20's were banging,
there were a couple things that happen
in the next decade that kind of got them-
everybody just in a wee bit of trouble.
They adapted, they evolved, and they stayed alive.
Pirelli was getting thicc, with like two c's,
and their international market had grown.
They were hip, they were scandalize guys
with the sexy models on the ads,
and the cool marketing with the dogs and the foxes
and then this and then that.
They had all the cool things going for them.
That paired with their new design,
such as the Cinturato tire, which was the first ever
Pirelli-made radial tire, in 1953,
and vwa-lah you had business.
Bustling through the 60's and 70's,
Pirelli continued to expand into Greece,
Turkey, Brazil, and a whole bunch of other places.
They ended up acquiring companies like Veith Gummiwerke,
it's a good thing we've got subtitles,
a company based out of Germany.
They were helping people win Nobel Peace Prizes
with the discovery of polypropylene,
which was they founded the use for rayon cords and tires
to help with heat resistance,
versus those nerds across the water using cotton.
Phew, nerds.
With Pirelli being involved from the racing side of things
as well as the commercial market,
they began to delve into low profile tires
for high profile, high end, vehicles.
Which car makers really, really, really enjoy.
Pirelli would become one of the first companies
to offer European and American variance of tires,
most notably for the last 60's Camaro,
which was a very interesting marketing thing
for a company in Italy to do for the United States market.
Not only that, but Pirelli since snagged a deal
with Lamborghini to put their Cinturato tires
on the one and only Lamborghini Miura.
Before we get into this next chapter of let's go
on adventure time with Alex from Fitment Industries,
I want you guys to know that we're going to be
talking about a car automobile manufacturer
that goes by the name of Lancia.
Now, however, there are multiple ways to pronounce this
and depending on which ad or commercial you watched
when you were ten years old, or depending on what
you've heard on the forums, people pronounce it differently.
So, just stop. Stop it.
Okay? Back to the video.
Pirelli was on the race.
It was 1972 and Lancia was coming through
like that one kid in high school with his arms
behind him like it was some sort of anime.
And they had this crazy (bleep) car that
we all remember from Top Gear, in the old rally footage
that everybody wanted to just somehow drive and own one day.
It completely outdid every car in it's class,
and it was the Lancia Stratos.
It was the car that was insane, it was light,
it was fast, it was nimble,
there was nothing that could take it on,
but there would be no tire application that would be able to
match it's needs and to get through the harshness
of the races that Lancia wanted it to go through.
And Pirelli was like...
I got this bud.
And the P7 was born.
The P7 helped the Lancia team take the W's,
from 1974-1981, in the classes that they would take part in.
The company began diving more and more
into motorcycle tires, as well.
They added more factories, they were leading more
into the 1980's, and they were doing very well.
They acquired an American tire company
known as Armstrong Tire.
It was one of the larger moves that got
Pirelli's Italian shoe wearing foot
in the door to this lovely market.
But not all was perfect, in the early 90's
Pirelli's success had to do with it's acquisition,
it's marketing, and of course, it's product.
Eat what you can and grow where it's possible,
and it's a hard mentality and business model
to keep up with for a century.
They attempted to do the same with companies
like Dunlop and Firestone in the past,
but Continental's potential acquisition
took a massive hit to the company's bottom line
and it wasn't fruitful.
Aka, it didn't work, zero fruit came out of that.
Very like airport fruit you buy for $7
with no water at the bottom, nothing, nada, nip.
While the acquisition essentially cripples the company,
the new CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera, saying it slow,
had other plans to keep Pirelli moving that way: forward.
He does look a little angry in his bio
and it's a bit little nerveracking for me to talk about him
because he just doesn't seem-
he just didn't seem like he'd be happy.
The eyebrows look like they'd cut me.
We got the same hair though,
so Marco, hope you're doing well.
Marco ended up taking the reigns on an international level,
and gets all of the Pirelli headquarters
together to focus on one thing.
One of the same things that seem to have been
kind of disconnecting the Pirelli name: innovation.
Their tire line sees the development of the P Zero tire,
a high performance tire that is still
being produced to this day.
And not just that, but Pirelli started to
get involved in a lot more than just tires.
They got involved in everything.
Between the introduction of the P Zero
and the P 6000, which did relatively well for the time,
the company got into rally sport, Formula 1, and much more.
They got involved in any sort of entrepreneurship ideas
and lean things and places to put them more
on a telecommunications path again.
Pirelli began moving towards the cable
sector to get back in front.
Then, Marco revitalized the marketing strategy
that made Pirelli so extraordinary
in the beginning days of its foundation.
Marco then pivoted the entire Pirelli brand to be more than
just a tire manufacturer, but an innovator of all things.
Information, transportation, marketing, communications,
the editor is going to hate me, cable, infrastructure,
an integrated/improved industry processes.
So what does this mean?
This adaptation in the 90's is what made Pirelli survive,
because it opted to be more than just a tire producer
at the time where tires weren't being
as good as they could have been for them.
Which is weird because most people in the states
don't know anything about Pirelli except the fact
that they make really expensive and pretty good tires.
And that's where it started getting into the 21st Century.
The early 2000's saw Pirelli try to grow
into telecommunications without much success.
So at this point, they pretty much said maybe,
maybe, maybe, we should just focus on tires for a bit, huh?
Pirelli advanced their Super Motorbike tire capabilities
in over 400 motor championships,
and even their 19 year absence from Formula 1
that they experienced, they just jumped right in,
as the cool kids do the thing,
and they jump back in with actually quite a bit of success.
Becoming the exclusive tire supplier for the event,
and that's a bit of a doozy to watch, by the way,
if you're a Formula 1 fan, there's quite a bit
of hubbub about all of that.
They locked into the Super Bike World Championships in 2004.
They hold the Ferrari exclusive tire rights
to the Ferrari Challenge and the Lamborghini Super Trofeo.
It's looking good.
Great. Huge. I don't even know how to do the-
Huge.
The company saw the upswing they needed with their
profitability doubling down between 2008 and 2015.
They immediately led to Pirelli taking an offer
between joint investment dudes ChemChina, Camfin,
and Russia's long term investments to get it de-listed
from the Public Stock Exchange and get them back into
a private company, rather than a publicly traded one.
This ended up hyper focusing the Pirelli name
back into style, product, and tires, and culture
that made Pirelli what it was:
a proper company of style and (bleep), (bleep) tires.
Although the company had seen multiple pulls in style,
changes in design, and adjustments to it's brand,
the company really never wanted to lose what made Pirelli...
Pirelli.
This led to the company creating its own historical
culture within the Pirelli foundation and thing.
It's like a history book and if you want to learn more,
go check it out.
The company since the mid-2000's has seen
focuses in and around tires,
and there's no mistake that Pirelli has been at the top
and later when it came to quality and design.
But it's much more than that for Pirelli.
It's not the sake of a dollar, for competition,
it's just imbued with how Pirelli does business.
It's like what they do, they just like being the best,
and their an Italian company that's got the style
and got the things, and got some cool things going for them,
and it's always been there.
From Giovanni to Marco Polo, I mean,
Pirelli has been a company with a proper personality
and attention to style that makes them always
one of those brands that you're like you know,
they're a wee bit expensive, but they're pretty neat.
So let us know if you guys are
running Pirelli's in the comment section below.
Don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell button
so we can keep making videos like this.
And let us also know what you'd like us to cover next.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries.
If you need wheels, tires, suspension,
check out fitmentindustries.com
Yeah, that's it.
Hope you guys enjoyed.
We will see you later, peace.