(light music)
- You moving back and forth shows energy, shows action.
You have your whole body moving into something,
you have your shoulders up, you're ready to go
you can talk about whatever you want,
then you sit back down and you're like,
"We're gonna talk about tire history."
The tire brand that's all about being aggressive
and tough, and beards and stuff.
Today we're gonna be talking about the tire brand
that pretty much all of you know and love,
Toyo Tires' little brother, Nitto Tire.
Nitto Tire was founded in 1949,
and while they're partnered with Toyo Tires,
Nitto was originally an independent tire maker.
And for the most part, just simply
exported their tires though all of the world.
There was nothing super crazy about Nitto's upbringing
besides the fact that they wanted
to make affordable tires that just could sell.
But there was one problem with Nitto
that a lot of other companies didn't have.
They just couldn't figure out how to sell tires.
They exported bias ply truck tires
and some commercial tires, but amongst that
they really just didn't have an image
or focus or target market or anything like that.
They just made tires.
By the 1960s, Nitto was exporting all throughout the world,
most predominantly the United States and the Middle East.
Now, it's not to say that, really,
Nitto's history is that shy when
it comes to difficult situations.
Nitto just never really had it easy.
They had numerous times where
they almost declared bankruptcy,
had multiple issues with service and quality,
and just overall had a tough time just trying to stay alive.
And even though Nitto began to expand
and grow throughout the world,
every single time they got bigger,
they just had a harder time staying alive.
The company didn't know what to do.
They expanded into the United States market
in the hopes that it would help their portfolio,
but their Japanese headquarters...
Their Japanese headquarters essentially
could not stay afloat for the life of them.
They tried desperately to grow in the United States market
and even opened up a sales operation in California.
But while things were just kinda starting to take off here
and not really in any good way,
they just could not figure out how to maintain
the entire ship of Nitto together without it, you know...
(whistles) You know, sinking.
But it became very clear that Nitto
had to figure out something to do with the brand,
otherwise they just weren't gonna survive.
And even though Toyo Tire acquired them in 1979,
Nitto really didn't get a whole lot of help.
They just didn't have a good time, man.
They just weren't doing the best that they possibly could.
In fact they probably weren't even doing mediocre.
So how would you say they were going in the 1980s?
Wellllll...
Not so great.
I mean, they were doing okay, but not good enough
to actually maintain their original market
of their Japanese headquarters.
Nitto had pulled nearly everything they possibly could
back in and only supplied tires to well, two specific areas,
which was the Middle East and the United States of America.
Besides that, Nitto just was not capable
of holding on to anything more than that.
So there was good news: Nitto made six million in sales.
Bad news: they nine million tires in inventory.
Everything from start to finish
when it came to Nitto, was in complete disarray.
See, now this is where it actually
gets fun to talk about Nitto because
when the 1990s came around, Nitto finally decided,
"Let's try to fix this from the ground up."
Enter a man named Tomo Mizutani.
Now, Tomo was essentially Nitto's answer
to figuring out all of their problems.
Tomo was a guy that was essentially created and well,
put in a position to turn around the Nitto brand.
He just started asking people what they wanted.
And he got the idea from another individual.
Hiroki Ichiki.
He got the idea from the man in regards
to somebody that had noticed that there was
a large growing population of import tuners
that were putting aftermarket wheels on their cars
but didn't have tire sizes to appropriately fit
these, well, aftermarket vehicles.
And there was a lot of street racing happening in Japan
as well as western California began to grow,
and there wasn't a tire manufacturer
that was actually capable of making
the stuff that enthusiasts wanted.
So Tomo decided, well, "If there's ever a chance
"to make some money, let's go ask other people
"and see if that's what they want."
And he did, he went to different autobody shops,
repair shops, racing shops, and everything in between
to ask people what they wanted.
And they got pretty much one answer:
"Just give us different tire sizes."
So they had three months to come up
with some sort of answer, otherwise something
was gonna cut and they were likely
not gonna have a future in the company.
Three months went by and Tomo and his team
essentially created the tire that people wanted.
He returned back to a lot of these racing shops
and different locations to showcase
these products that they made.
A lot of the guys that talked to Tomo had no idea
what Nitto was, and they had no idea what the brand was,
but really, the enthusiasts didn't care.
They didn't have brand loyalty like they do now,
and they really didn't care because it just provided them
with an opportunity to have tires that fit their wheels.
Tomo, by the way, is now the United States President
and CEO of Toyo Tires, which is a pretty cool thing.
See, I told you there was some good news to this.
So traditionally, Nitto really didn't have
any success in the past, so Tomo and his team
had a lot of freedom to do what they wanted
because at the end of the day,
if it didn't work, what do you have to lose?
Tomo and his team really essentially
locked themselves in rooms, days and nights,
to figure out what products people wanted,
doing all the R and D, trying to create the molds
and everything needed for people to just start buying Nitto.
I mean, it was (imitates bomb exploding)
shocking to a company like Nitto
that if they did that it worked.
People like Dario Orlando began to sponsor the Nitto brand
because of his experience with the tires themselves.
But when Nitto started to get involved,
especially with companies like the Mustang scene
and the forums and magazines
that were catered around the muscle car scene
in terms of track use, Nitto began to win.
And there's a lot of companies that
were starting to get upset by Nitto
kinda taking the top off and winning first place,
and kinda just rubbing it in everybody's faces.
Because this company came out of nowhere
and started to listen to what people wanted
and their products were, well, pretty good.
It didn't matter what the brand was
because people started to like them.
So they decided to attend more events
and it became very clear that they had another market
that they were completely missing: trucks.
They noticed that there's a huge truck market
in the United States and they went out
to car shows and trucks shows and swap meets
and baja events and everything in between
to figure out what people wanted.
And they found out that truck people, well,
they wanted different tire sizes.
Weird, it's like again, enthusiasts wanting something
and the brand was like, "Yeah, we can make that for you."
So Nitto partnered with companies like AMT Metal Alloys
that made aftermarket truck wheels and things like that.
They just needed to have something that had
larger tire sizes and Nitto was the one company
that said, "Absolutely, we can do that."
Nitto was the reason that a lot of companies
began to supply these larger, wider tire sizes
that a lot of other companies just didn't offer at the time.
And because of the price point that they were at
Nitto was just becoming like the good guys.
It was the company that people wanted to do business with.
It was the company that people liked to do business with.
It was like the cool, hip uncle.
So Nitto had the car companies on lock,
they had the truck guys, the mall crawlers
like the truck right next to me,
and they had everything in between locked down,
but there was one other market
that they were completely missing
that they noticed was taking over a lot
of the California scene: off road.
Nitto was like, "Boom, let's go out there
"and see if they want something."
And they did, they wanted tire treads
that were aggressive looking, that looked good,
that performed well, that weren't gonna cost a lot of money,
and Nitto was like, "Sure, let's do that."
And they originally got the name
from the fact that they wanted their tire tread
to look like a dinosaur footprint,
but they introduced a whole bunch of different tire treads.
They introduced the Mud Grappler,
which was extremely aggressive and loud
and in your face, that a lot of people loved.
They introduced the Dune Grappler,
which was for obvious reasons for dunes
and things like that, that had a great traction path
and just worked outside of your normal Walmart meet.
They had the Trail Grappler, which is considered
one of the most popular mud tires
that you can buy for your truck at the time.
And the Terra Grappler, which was
an all-terrain truck tire that, well you know,
you could pretty much throw on anything.
And these tires were massively successful.
And then finally, and this is kinda
jumping ahead a little bit,
they introduced the Ridge Grappler,
which is considered by most people,
the most successful popular truck tire you can possibly put
on any aftermarket wheel for the truck scene.
Why are we talking about trucks so much?
Well, because it was a huge market that Nitto hit
and they hit it extremely well.
Because of that market and because of the fact
that the truck community and the off road community
and the car community were just taken back
by how well Nitto was providing products,
Nitto actually began to like, be successful.
Now they were actually doing something pretty cool.
They continued to listen to people,
they hosted all sorts of different competitions and designs.
They came out with a cool website in the late 90s
that was like mind-blowing at the time.
They introduced a competition for design aesthetics
for their Nitto Invo line that was actually
held online, which was extremely cool.
And they just continued to do stuff
that no other manufacturer was doing at the time.
And by 2004 their sales climbed
to a hundred million dollars.
Nitto came essentially from nothing to something huge.
And they did it by just going back
to the grassroots of what they wanted
to try and accomplish, which was
to create products that people just wanted.
If you're talking about the Ridge Grappler,
you're talking about the NT series, the drag series,
if you're talking about their
more all-season tire, or all-terrain tire,
they had everything that somebody wanted,
and it was a pretty good looking tire.
Even Toyo mentions that Nitto is a brand
that's meant for the sport tuning scene
of the domestic American market.
But the cool thing about it is that Nitto doesn't hide that.
They're proud of the fact that
they're creating products for enthusiasts.
The brand loyalty that Nitto has grown
in the short time that it's actually
gotten successful, is absolutely incredible.
And just as Mizutani once said, even though Nitto
is a Japanese company with a Japanese name
and founded in Japan, it was reborn in the United States,
and that's the reason why the sales headquarters
will remain in the United States.
Because without the growth of the domestic market
of the United States of America,
Nitto would likely not be a company.
So if you're looking to pick up a set of Nittos
or you just wanna check out wheels, tires,
suspension, or airlift, there's a sales pitch coming.
Check out fitmentindustries.com and you know,
see if you maybe wanna pick up a set.
I mean, maybe you do.
I don't know what this is.
And we have another giveaway.
By the way, to the people that said
that they requested Cragar, thank you.
And the winner for this week's video is easy street
so congratulations man, you won.
We're doing another giveaway, though.
So this one's pretty easy, we're gonna give you a t-shirt
and we're gonna give you some spiked valve stem caps,
which are pretty nice little valve stem caps.
We're gonna do t-shirt, we do valve stem caps.
All you need to do is comment below
on what your dream wheels are.
So if you have your dream wheels
that you wanna buy, drop a comment below.
If you already have them, just drop a comment
on what they are, sizes, offsets, all that sorta good stuff.
So we'll take anything, we wanna see
what your dream wheels are, then of course,
if you have aftermarket wheels, you can add them
to our gallery at fitmentindustries.com/add.
But we'll be picking a winner
on next week's video, which is suspension history.
We hope you guys enjoyed, I'm Alex from Fitment Industries.
Don't forget to subscribe and thank you
so much for watching, we'll see you later, peace.