- [Narrator] It's a global $200 billion industry,
producing enough tires a year
to stack all the way to the moon and beyond.
- If you don't believe the value of a tire,
you sure as hell are gonna realize it
when you most need it.
- Living here we get lots of snow.
I certainly don't take good tires for granted.
- [Narrator] Today, two American brands
are the automotive titans.
- Firestone and Goodyear,
two names indelibly associated with tires in America.
- [Narrator] But before they were household names,
they are innovators who pushed the boundaries of rubber.
- Where are we with our treaded tire?
- [Narrator] To bring tires as we know them to the world.
- I need a tire that anybody can change themselves.
- [Narrator] They're bitter enemies.
- They hated each other, did not like each other at all.
- I don't understand.
I thought we had a deal?
- [Narrator] Battling it out in the same town.
- You could not say the word Goodyear
at the Firestone factory.
- Goodyear completely pulls the rug out
from under Firestone.
- Firestone realizes, if I'm gonna take on Goodyear,
it's time to take the gloves off.
- [Narrator] Fighting for dominance on the nation's roads.
- They were doing anything they could
to get traction on those tires.
- [Narrator] And the skies above.
- It's difficult to imagine the world of sports today
without the Goodyear Blimp riding overhead.
- [Narrator] It's a race.
- Are we waiting on anyone else?
- [Narrator] To be the name on every tire in America.
- The Firestone-Goodyear rivalry
was probably one of the greatest rivalries
in American business.
- This should be interesting.
[bold music]
- [Narrator] In 1896, Americans still rely
on horse and carriages to get around.
- You have a lot of dirt roads and cobblestone streets
that were more or less paved with horse manure.
The stench would've really stood out.
Very different scene than what we have now.
- [Narrator] Primarily relying on wooden and metal wheels,
horse-drawn carriages offer little in the way of comfort.
- When you look back at horse and carriage,
it's all very romanticized.
That's nice.
But in reality, life was pretty rough
on a steel and wood wheel.
- If you've ever been on a carriage ride,
like in Central Park in New York,
imagine that but somehow smellier,
more uncomfortable,
and just worse in every way anything could be bad, ever.
- [Narrator] The time is ripe for any visionary
who can improve transportation in America.
- [Harvey] I think we have just what you're looking for.
- [Narrator] But in Detroit, one young carriage salesman
is mostly just focused on keeping his family fed.
- He grew up on a farm in Columbiana, Ohio,
and he went to business school for a couple of years,
and then worked a couple of odd jobs
as a traveling salesman around Ohio and the Midwest.
- You are really gonna like these.
- [Narrator] He sells a new item
that makes horse and buggy rides less bumpy.
- The solid rubber lining dampens the ride,
which provides comfort
while protecting your vehicle's delicate mechanics.
- [Narrator] Rubber tires.
While the latex from rubber trees
has been used for millennia
for things like rubber balls and waterproof containers,
it took a mid-1800s breakthrough
to make rubber the resilient material we think of today.
- Natural rubber, if it gets too cold, it cracks.
It gets too warm, it starts to sort of melt.
But by mixing sulfur, heat, and rubber,
you end up with a form of rubber that is more durable,
and this comes to be known as vulcanized rubber.
- So post Civil War people were using it
to make things like clothing, raincoats, shoes, and boots.
So the idea of what this product could be used for
was expanding.
- [Narrator] Now, white solid rubber tires
are the newest in carriage technology.
- Rubber is naturally white.
It's a sap that comes out of a rubber tree,
so most early tires at that time were white.
- Interesting thing about the word tire
is that it's actually short for the word attire
because it was the dressing you put on a wheel.
- I'll be honest.
I don't know if I can afford them.
- Let me talk with my manager.
We'll make it work.
[bold music]
- [Narrator] The salesman has no idea this chance meeting
will help launch an automotive giant,
one that pioneers revolutionary tire innovations,
grows into an empire worth $30 billion,
with close to 2,000 auto shops across America,
and its name on billions of tires around the world.
[bold music]
- Harvey Firestone.
- Henry Ford.
- [Narrator] It will be years
before Ford and Firestone reconnect.
For now, Firestone just sees potential
in using rubber for tires.
- So in 1900, he and his family decide to relocate
where rubber was really concentrated,
in the city of Akron.
- [Narrator] Akron, Ohio is ground zero
for America's rubber boom.
- Akron was the perfect place for new rubber businesses
because it had lots of water,
which the tire industry needed, as well as transportation.
- Once the first rubber companies take root in Akron,
they begin to attract other companies.
With all that labor force, everything begins to,
you know, create this sort of gold rush town for rubber.
- [Narrator] But Firestone isn't the only entrepreneur
searching for fortunes in Akron.
- Frank Seiberling could be described as very ambitious.
His father owned an agricultural machinery company,
and Frank was working for him.
But there was a financial panic across the country,
and his father lost all of his money.
- So he tried a bunch of different businesses,
but he has no success.
So he's somewhat trying to figure out
what is gonna be the next great idea that he can try.
- So Seiberling sees that the rubber industry
is where the growth opportunity is
and he needs to be a part of it.
- [Narrator] Seiberling convinces
his younger brother Charles to join him.
- He doesn't have really much money
to his name at that point.
They borrow a hundred thousand dollars from banks
so they can get their business going.
- [Narrator] Now their new venture just needs a name.
- The Akron Rubber Company.
- Too generic.
- Well, feel free to offer a suggestion of your own.
- Umm.
[bold music]
Who was it that invented vulcanized rubber?
- Charles Goodyear.
Why?
- I think that's it.
Goodyear.
[bold music]
- [Narrator] It's a name that will be adorned
on everything from tires everywhere,
to race cars, to an iconic airship
celebrated at sporting events worldwide,
paving the way for a global empire
bringing in nearly $20 billion a year.
But buried in debt, Seiberling needs a product
that can keep him afloat
And he has one in mind.
- His vision is to create a new kind of tire
for the newest kind of transportation technology
that is taking America by storm.
And that modality of transport
is, of course, the bicycle.
Didn't see that coming, did you?
- Bicycles were a huge craze at the turn of the century.
And at one point, there were over 300 companies
making bicycles in America,
at the rate of one bike being built every minute.
- [Narrator] Driving the explosion
is a new innovation called pneumatic tires.
- The earliest tires were made out of solid rubber,
but that didn't really provide a very comfortable ride.
- A pneumatic tire is a tire
fitted with an inner tube inside to hold air
that provides a level of suspension
and softness in the tire.
- And so this is the next big thing
in terms of bicycle technology.
- Seiberling is all in on this rubber business.
And because he has such huge loans to pay off,
it better work.
- [Narrator] But within a few years,
it becomes apparent that everyone who wants a bicycle
already has one.
- There was this huge bicycle craze
which lasted about a decade and peaked sort of in 1896.
- But then demand pretty much collapsed.
And this created a real problem for Goodyear.
- [Narrator] By 1906, it's clear to Seiberling
that bicycle tires are the wrong bet.
Meanwhile, just over a mile down the road,
on Akron's south side, another tire maker struggles.
Harvey Firestone poured his savings into a factory
to make tires for carriages
but fails to break through Akron's crowded rubber industry.
So he considers a risky pivot.
- When Firestone starts to make tires,
he's very interested in solid rubber tires specifically.
But he starts to see the tide turn,
and that really the future is a pneumatic tire.
- Is this the latest?
- Oh, uh, no.
Uh, here.
Here, I've made some tweaks.
- [Narrator] But rather than bicycles,
Firestone looks to a different vehicle in need of tires,
the automobile.
- Many of the early automobiles
were actual carriages with motors fitted,
so most people refer to them as horseless carriages.
- It is not a means of transportation.
It is a toy.
It is something for a Vanderbilt, or a Rockefeller,
or somebody like that.
It's fun for the wealthy few.
- But Firestone felt this has no limit,
and one day, everyone's gonna have a car.
- [Narrator] But Firestone is beaten to the punch.
The largest rubber firms in Akron control a patent
on a tire used by every automaker in the country.
It's called the clincher.
- The clincher tire was the first pneumatic automobile tire,
and it was attached to the rim by these kind of metal hooks.
The clincher's biggest issue
was what they called rim cutting,
where that metal and rubber would rub together,
and this would lead to blowouts or punctures.
- [Narrator] Firestone becomes obsessed
with creating a superior car tire.
- Harvey Firestone,
he's one of these sort of classic American figures
who doesn't have a lot of respect
for established firms keeping out the little upstart,
and it shows through in the way
that he approaches the business.
- So Firestone designs a new rim
to mount this pneumatic tire to.
There were some metal wires
that helped really hold the tire to the rim.
It was more reliable and more resilient
than a clincher tire.
- [Narrator] But there's a catch.
- Firestone has devised a tire,
which will not work with a clincher rim.
- But at this time, when automotive technology
was so new,
the rim was actually part of the car.
- So he has to find an automaker
who's willing to take a giant risk
and equip their cars with his rims.
- So he looks around for people
that were sort of up-and-comers
in the nascent automobile industry.
- [Narrator] It's in this moment
that Firestone realizes he has an ace in the hole.
It turns out a former customer of his
just so happens to be building a car of his own.
- Henry.
Good to see you.
- [Narrator] In South Akron,
Harvey Firestone hopes to convince a young Henry Ford
to put Firestone tires on his new car.
- So Firestone heard through the grapevine
that Henry Ford was looking to release a new vehicle
called the Model T.
And so he reintroduced himself all those years later.
- Well, what do you have to show me?
This will make clincher tires a thing of the past.
Ours will be riveted to the rim,
so there's no more slipping, no more tearing.
- We think of Henry Ford now
as this giant in the car manufacturing industry.
But in 1905, he was just one
of many very hungry automobile manufacturers.
- And he has the long range vision
of turning the car into a mass-marketed phenomenon.
- Firestone identifies
that wherever the auto industry is going,
Henry Ford is going to lead the way.
- Clever, but it sounds expensive.
- Henry Ford is notorious as this penny pincher,
but Firestone is desperate
to get his foot in the door with Ford.
- And he's willing to do whatever it takes
to make that happen.
- Well, you give me a large order
and I'll beat whatever you're paying for clinchers.
- Firestone thought if he could undercut the competition,
he might have been having
a very low margin of profit at this point,
but he was looking long term
and what was he going to gain in the future.
[bold music]
- Deal.
- Ford orders 2,000 units from Firestone
for a whopping $110,000.
That's over $3 million in today's money.
- This was a really big sale for Firestone
as it's still a very small company,
but he was able to really show
the other tire companies in Akron that he was here to play.
- [Narrator] Firestone quickly pours all of his reserve cash
into purchasing additional rubber and metal,
betting everything on his ability to deliver.
- He's risking it all to fill these orders.
So if Firestone can't get it done,
it could be game over for him.
- [Narrator] But Firestone
isn't the only rubber maker in Akron
making big moves to survive.
Frank Seiberling at Goodyear
is still reeling from the collapse of the bicycle boom.
As a last shot, he tries to muscle his way
into the same territory as Firestone
with a car tire.
- The new tire and rim design
will render the clincher obsolete.
- Goodyear comes up with an idea for a tire
that effectively just goes straight down into the rim,
similar to what we see on tires today,
where you get the tire onto the rim,
and then you inflate it, and it stays in place.
- So this was really a game-changer.
- [Narrator] Now, Seiberling needs an automaker
to take the bait.
- In five years,
no one will even remember what a clincher is.
[bold music]
- I'm sure it's a great design,
but I came here as a courtesy.
Unfortunately, I've already made a deal
with another manufacturer
who also has a better design than the clincher.
- Can I ask who?
- Firestone.
I apologize for wasting your time.
- I hope he's not selling you tires
that won't fit a clincher rim.
- Why?
- Because no auto mechanic in the country
stocks Firestone tires.
They all sell clinchers.
And that means when someone driving your car gets a flat,
your customer will be stranded on the side of the road.
[bold music]
We designed our rim to work with our tire
in the standard clincher.
- What Goodyear comes up with
is what he calls the universal rim.
It's a rim that will take a clincher tire
or a straight side tire.
- Frank Seiberling comes in,
tells Henry Ford that the tires from Firestone
will not work with his custom rim.
- There's no way that Ford wants to create a situation
where the first time his customer needs a new tire,
they're gonna be stranded.
So suddenly, Seiberling has Ford second guessing
the deal he has with Firestone.
[dramatic music]
- We'll be in touch.
- And in one fell swoop, Seiberling sabotaged the deal
between Firestone and Ford,
opening the door for Goodyear to get in
and hopefully stay in.
[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] Just a mile down the road,
Firestone has been working day and night
on Henry Ford's order.
[phone ringing]
- Hello?
- Firestone has invested a lot of money
into ramping up production.
So his plan to make a killing
hinges on delivering Ford his tires.
- [Narrator] But before he can deliver,
Firestone is hit with devastating news.
- I don't understand.
I thought we had a deal?
- So after Ford has made an offer to Firestone,
he stabs him in the back
and makes a deal with Goodyear for 1,200 tires.
- And Ford says, "In order to keep my business,
I need you to make clincher tires for me instead."
- Nope.
No, that won't be a problem.
- [Narrator] Left with nowhere to turn, Firestone agrees.
- Goodbye.
- Ford completely pulls the rug out from under Firestone.
So now, this new tire, this improved tire,
which he has invested thousands
and thousands of dollars in it,
he's gonna basically have to shelve it.
- And to make matters worse,
now he has to go pay a licensing fee
to these big rubber manufacturers
who hold the patent on the clincher tire.
[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] In October 1908,
Ford releases the first mass-produced automobile
known as the Model T.
- Model T was a huge success when it first came out.
It was $850, which was very cheap at the time.
- Suddenly, everyone could afford a car.
Everyone had the ability to get around the nation.
- [Narrator] By the following year,
over 12,000 Model Ts will be on the road.
- To make the car as universally acceptable as possible,
Ford employs the clincher rim,
as well as the Goodyear rim.
- [Narrator] While buyers don't select
which tires come with their new car,
Seiberling wants to make sure they choose Goodyear
the first time they need replacements.
[bold music]
- He starts buying full page ads in newspapers
in "The Saturday Evening Post," and "Collier's" magazine,
"Life" magazine on why Goodyear is a superior tire.
- This was new at the time,
to sort of go straight to the customer and say,
when your tires wear out, why don't you try a straight side?
[bold music]
- Firestone is rightfully seething.
First, Seiberling and Goodyear totally do an end-around
and they snake his deal with Ford.
Then he's having unprecedented success
advertising his tires.
And Firestone realizes, if I'm gonna take on Goodyear,
it's time to take the gloves off.
- He now has to go back to the drawing board
and figure out a way to gain a competitive edge
with something more innovative.
- This is the moment where one of the biggest rivalries
in the American automotive industry is born.
[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] In Akron,
after having his Ford deal torpedoed by Goodyear,
Harvey Firestone is more committed than ever
to becoming a go-to name in car tires.
- You can almost picture Harvey Firestone
looking out his window at the Goodyear building.
"Why, I'm gonna show you guys how it's done."
- [Narrator] As more Model Ts roll off the assembly line,
Firestone knows he can't afford to miss out.
- So we're just on the cusp
of a real mass market for automobiles.
The automobile industry itself has grown tremendously,
as has the tire business.
- [Narrator] But it turns out the automobile boom
is actually causing a problem,
one that could be an opening for Firestone.
- By the time of the Model T's debut in 1908,
the streets were quickly becoming
clogged with automobiles.
There's very little in the way of regulations.
- [Narrator] 1,850 motor vehicle deaths
are recorded in just one year.
- There's no speed limit.
You don't have mechanisms to say who's gonna yield to whom.
Frankly, it's chaos.
- The ability of a driver to stop or control their car well
is extremely limited.
And so, therefore, accidents abound.
[car engine whirring]
- [Narrator] At the time, car tires offer little help
in preventing accidents.
- In the early part of the 20th century,
tires are completely smooth.
It's kind of like an inner tube you might float in
in a pool or a beach.
And that's really it.
- So people would sometimes come up
with all kinds of crazy ideas for better traction.
- So they tried all sorts of things, steel studs,
rivets, little bands of metal.
But manufacturers had yet to really fully understand
how tires could grip the road.
[bold music]
- Firestone is thinking, how can we make it safer
for anybody to get in a car and drive
and not live in constant fear
of, you know, a car skidding out of control.
- [Narrator] To break through,
Firestone needs to reimagine how a tire works.
But every attempt falls flat.
- They were using steel studs,
strips of leather, rubber buttons.
They were doing anything they could
to get traction on those tires.
- [Narrator] Head engineer John Thomas
believes he's found a solution.
- So this engineer's thinking,
we need a way to add more friction,
more points of contact.
And then it hits him.
[bold music]
- What's with the letters?
- The letters will provide increased traction
to give the tires more grip.
They also spell the name of the new tire.
- His chief engineer comes up with an idea
that by adding these raised sections,
they could increase the contact patch of the tire surface.
- When they tested it,
they realized that they had solved the problem
of creating a tire that had good traction.
- And the great thing he does is he puts words
in raised rubber on the tire,
so that wherever it drives, in dirt,
it actually leaves this impression.
It says-
- Non-skid.
- I want it to say Firestone non-skid.
[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] After months of development,
in September of 1908, Firestone releases the non-skid tire.
[bold music]
- Firestone creatively comes up with the notion
of having the tread itself be its own advertisement.
Very clever marketing.
- Firestone's notion of printing these letters on his tire
is a brilliant idea.
Because if you are walking down the street
and you see that tire, you know what to ask for.
The name's right on the tire.
- [Narrator] By year's end,
Firestone sells 40,000 non-skid tires,
a twofold increase in his full tire production.
- Nowadays, there's tread on every tire,
from a child's stroller to a bicycle.
And none of that would happen if Firestone hadn't responded
to the fact that these cars are getting faster
and more dangerous.
- [Narrator] At Goodyear,
Seiberling is finally not drowning in debt
thanks to his growing car tire business,
but Firestone's non-skids have him on edge.
- Where are we with our treaded tire?
- We have something to show you now.
- Seiberling soon gets the nickname Little Napoleon
because he was a short guy with a fiery temper
determined to get his way.
- Goodyear, seeing what Firestone had accomplished
with their non-skid tire,
thought, obviously we have to go one step further.
- Where are the letters?
- Uh, no letters.
I went with a diamond pattern.
The tire can grip on any surface.
That means improved performance in the rain or the snow.
- Goodyear gets much more scientific.
Goodyear's diamond pattern
creates these parallel lines and channels
which actually cut through heavy rain or snowfall,
you know, producing the optimal traction.
And it also looks pretty badass.
[bold music]
- [Narrator] Seiberling markets his new design
as the first all-weather tire.
- It was something that we take for granted today,
but it really was a genius light bulb idea
that changed driving overnight.
- The all-weather tire proved to be really versatile
because it really gripped the road
no matter which way you were turning
and helped keep the vehicle going in the right direction.
- And it is head and shoulders superior
to Firestone's non-skid.
- This tire was so successful that this diamond tread
was virtually unchanged for like 40 years
and has become indelibly connected to the Goodyear brand.
- [Narrator] By decade's end,
Goodyear's revenue tops $4 million,
nearly 130 million today,
solidifying Goodyear as one of the top rubber companies
in the country.
- Goodyear is given
the largest tire order to date
for any rubber company, from General Motors.
So they're outfitting almost every brand
of General Motors car with Goodyear tires by 1909.
- [Narrator] Just across town,
Firestone is running out of patience
as Goodyear racks up wins with automakers.
- Rubber tires really became integral
to the success of the automobile industry,
so making rubber tires evolve
was integral to sell cars to people.
- Firestone at this point
is still really targeting the car manufacturers,
but he knows that after the car is made,
the decision maker is the consumer.
- [Narrator] Firestone thinks,
what would make drivers' lives better?
And then it hits him.
- Forget whatever you're working on right now.
I need a tire that anybody can change themselves.
- Changing tires on automobiles at the turn of the century
was extremely difficult.
- The tire was something that had to be pried off
if you wanna change it,
kinda like you're changing a bike tire.
- You needed a whole box full of special tools
to get the tire out from the rim.
And it was almost impossible then
to get the new tire back on.
You'd have to send to the mechanic
to come change your tire for you.
- So Firestone thinks that if he could come up with a system
where anyone can change a tire,
this could be the innovation
that allows him to beat Goodyear.
- But you need tools.
Our tires are designed not to come off.
- Rethink it, all right?
No restrictions.
Just pretend you've never seen a rim or an axle before.
[dramatic music]
If we can pull this off, it'll change everything.
[dramatic music]
[suspenseful music]
[rhythmic music]
- By 1909, Firestone sales
have climbed to $3 million,
though it's still frustratingly behind Goodyear's revenue
of over 4 million.
- It's even been said
that you could not say the word Goodyear
at the Firestone factory.
You would call it the factory on the east side.
So even to the point of internally,
they didn't talk about each other.
- [Narrator] But now, Harvey Firestone
has a revolutionary new tire design
he thinks will upend the whole industry.
- With nothing but a wrench, you simply tighten the nuts
to secure the rim to the vehicle,
and you have a new tire installed
all in under five minutes.
It's so easy anybody can do it.
- [Narrator] Firestone calls it the Demountable.
- Today, we expect that a tire and a rim are one piece,
removable from the axle.
But that was not the case in the beginning.
- Early tires were actually attached to the rims,
which were permanently attached to the axles.
So therefore you couldn't simply remove a wheel
and replace it with another wheel.
- So this is an evolution in tire production
because now for the first time,
the rim is no longer attached to the car.
It's now part of the tire.
- [Narrator] And to ensure motorists are never stranded,
Firestone comes up with a novel idea.
- When automobiles began,
the risk of tire failure was very high.
And once this happened, if you did not have the tools
and the ability to change the tire off of the rim,
you would be stranded.
- So Firestone has this great idea.
It's a revolutionary idea.
- We sell them as a set of five, four plus a spare.
- Harvey Firestone decides to sell these in sets of five
as opposed to four tires and calls the fifth tire the spare.
- Now, the lay person, from any walk of life,
male or female, in an hour of distress,
not only can change their tire,
but might have an extra one in case of an emergency.
No one had even thought of that before Firestone.
- Car companies see this,
and they fall in love with the idea,
and they start creating compartments in the back
and the sides of the car to hold the spare tire,
the rim, and a pump.
- So this made it easier for a car owner,
even by themselves, to change a flat when they needed to.
- [Narrator] By the close of the decade,
all Ford Model T's are fitted
with four demountable tires and a spare.
- This was a game changer for Firestone.
And they really saw a huge growth in their sales
exponentially overnight.
- [Narrator] But success breeds imitation.
Soon, every tire maker jumps on the demountable trend,
including Firestone's biggest rival.
- Goodyear and Firestone are both riding the wave
of increasing sales to companies like Ford.
Firestone hits $44 million in 1916.
Goodyear hits a hundred million dollars in the same year.
- Goodyear has become the largest tire producer
in the country.
So here, a business that's only been around for 18 years,
went from being kind of a scrappy startup
to the largest tire producer in the world.
- [Narrator] But celebrations are short lived
as a seismic event threatens everything.
[apprehensive music] [explosion booming]
- War breaks out in Europe.
And while America is not initially involved,
the writing is really on the wall
that we probably will get pulled into this conflict.
- When America enters World War I in April of 1917,
the federal government
launches a huge mobilization campaign,
which involves government agencies
but also the private sector.
- [Narrator] In an effort
to marshal the nation's collective resources,
the War Industries Board, or WIB,
is formed on July 28th, 1917.
- So the government tries to get manufacturers,
automobile manufacturers,
to produce materiel for our war effort
to send over with our doughboys.
And the tire industry is no exception.
- [Narrator] But with bitter rivalries still boiling,
cooperation won't come easy.
[dramatic music]
- Are we waiting on anyone else?
[dramatic music intensifies]
- It has to come as a big jolt to the system
when someone you've pretty much seen as your arch-nemesis
has to be your partner.
This should be interesting.
[suspenseful music]
[rhythmic music]
- [Narrator] It's 1917, and America is at war.
In an effort to gather the nation's resources,
they call on the auto industry for support.
- And Goodyear and Firestone are both going to have to shift
and start focusing on their contributions
to the overnight-built US Army.
- [Narrator] Agreeing to a truce,
Goodyear and Firestone both pivot to wartime production,
supplying vital materials for the troops.
As Firestone makes everything from truck tires
to rubber gas tanks and boots,
the government turns to Goodyear
for help with a top-secret reconnaissance vehicle.
- It's a vehicle
unlike anything the military has used before.
It's massive, it's mobile,
it demands a huge amount of rubber.
It's designed to take soldiers
to places they typically can't get into easily,
and it will change the way the war is seen.
- [Narrator] It's a groundbreaking tool
that can help spot the enemy from above,
an aircraft called a blimp.
- Goodyear was the only company in the United States
that was making rubberized fabric for aviation purposes.
And so the Navy said, we'd like you to make blimps,
which are basically like a large oblong balloon
with a carriage underneath
that some of the crew members would sit.
- [Narrator] To match Germany's aerial might,
the Navy contracts Goodyear to construct 1,000 balloons
and 60 blimps.
- The Navy
actually came to Akron and set up a training facility
at Wingfoot Lake, where the balloons
were all being assembled and built,
and they trained on how to fly them,
and then they would take them and use them
in the war effort.
- And airships were being used
to spy on, you know, behind the lines.
- They traveled up and down the Atlantic coast,
keeping an eye out for any kind of enemy submarines
or ships that might have been lurking out there
off the coast of America.
- So airships, balloons, these are important technologies
in World War I for sort of the way the war was fought.
- [Narrator] Years later,
Goodyear will turn their wartime creation
into a major advertising symbol.
- It's interesting, you know, the Goodyear Blimp
was originally used for war,
but now it's this iconic piece of Americana.
It's something that's near and dear to people's heart.
- Who doesn't love seeing the Goodyear Blimp
over a football game?
- In the '70s, one of the model kit makers,
you could get a model of the Goodyear Blimp.
It was very exciting.
- [Narrator] At a high cost for humanity,
the war is extremely lucrative
for both Firestone and Goodyear.
- So a lot of companies have long-term contracts
with the American military to supply war materiel.
The money's pouring in as a result of this.
And a lot of manufacturers, tire firms included,
use this opportunity to expand their operations.
- [Narrator] Goodyear is especially bullish at this time,
spending heavily to maintain its top spot in the industry.
- Seiberling goes on this expansion tear,
opening 124 sales offices around the country,
confident that this market will remain intact.
He thinks that the war contracts will always keep coming.
- [Narrator] But on November 11th, 1918,
World War I officially ends,
sending the nation into a post-war recession.
- World War I ends rather suddenly.
And when the war ends, war contracts are canceled.
And that means that if you're a manufacturer
who's decided to expand on the expectation of war contracts,
you find yourself in a precarious financial situation.
- Goodyear had huge debt,
tens of millions of dollars of debt
because of expanding very quickly.
So Frank ran around the country borrowing money,
trying to make payroll, trying to keep the company afloat.
- All of a sudden, this is not looking good for Goodyear.
[apprehensive music]
- [Narrator] By 1921, Goodyear is $85 million in debt,
the modern day equivalent of $1.4 billion.
- They were really stuck in a position
where they needed money to pay their creditors back.
So Goodyear, they had to bring in
an investment firm from New York City
to basically refinance the company.
- Here's our proposals.
Significant changes to management will be required.
[dramatic music]
- Part of the negotiations, however,
was that Frank and his brother Charlie
would step down from the leadership of the company.
- We'll expect your resignations.
- At that moment,
Seiberling isn't just facing the loss of his company,
he's also staring down the death of his life's work.
This is everything he built, everything he sacrificed for.
- And if we refuse?
- Then we'll sell your company for parts.
[apprehensive music]
- [Narrator] At Goodyear, the Seiberlings have been given
an impossible choice,
save themselves or save their company.
- The Seiberlings are sort of the scapegoat
for what happens at Goodyear.
This is something
that's common across American business at the time.
It's quite common for firms to go under,
to be reorganized, founders to be out on the street
following reorganizations.
- We'll await your decision.
[tense rhythmic music]
- This was a very emotional decision for the Seiberlings.
They could break the company up.
They could sell the different parts of it
to other rubber companies
and walk away millionaires many times over.
But they employed 10,000 workers in the city of Akron.
And so if the success of Goodyear
meant one person losing their job instead of 10,000 people,
he would lose his job.
So on May 13th, 1921,
they both handed in their resignations.
- This thing they have sort of poured decades of their life,
tons of their own money, countless hours,
blood, sweat, and tears,
it's gone.
- [Narrator] Word of the Seiberling brothers'
resignations reverberate around Akron,
especially at Firestone.
- Firestone has spent decades toe to toe with Seiberling,
trying to beat his main rival.
But now that guy is out of the picture.
But Firestone's not satisfied.
He still wants to beat Goodyear, the company.
- [Narrator] By 1922, the economy is recovering,
and Firestone's tire production doubles
to over 25,000 tires a day.
Now, with Goodyear hobbled and car sales increasing,
Firestone works on an idea he hopes
will revolutionize the tire once more.
- I've had my men do some surveys.
What is it do you think customers value most
in a set of tires?
- Durability?
- Nope, comfort.
- So in the early days, cars like the Model T
topped out at about 25 miles per hour.
But by the 1920s, they're going like 45 miles or more.
The problem is tires haven't kept pace
with this new speed and power.
I mean, sure, treads make them safer,
but they're still thin, they're still stiff,
and they are brutally overinflated.
- So we've developed a tire that makes it feel
as if you're riding on a cushion of air.
[dramatic music]
- At Firestone, they hit upon the idea of,
what if we made a pneumatic tire that's bigger,
a little bit fatter, a little bit bulbous,
that uses lower pressure,
what comes to be called the balloon tire.
- It looks big.
- Ah, you'll get used to it.
[bold music]
- [Narrator] In 1923, Firestone introduces
the industry's first balloon tire.
- The main advantages of a balloon tire
is the fact that it had a wider contact patch,
as well as having a lower pressure,
which meant that it provided a smoother ride for the car.
- Car companies like Ford,
they see how powerful this innovation is,
and consumers fall in love with it.
Within six months, they've ramped up production
to over 25,000 tires every week.
- [Narrator] By 1925, Firestone's innovation
is applied to motor buses, trucks, and race cars.
- These new balloon air cushion tires were so revolutionary
that Ford literally changed the design of their cars
to adapt to these new tires,
and it revolutionized the whole auto industry.
- The balloon tire is very similar
to tires that we know today.
This is really a precursor of our modern tire.
And this revolutionized tire building.
- In 1932, Firestone retires.
And though he never beat his rival one on one,
he has the last laugh, because to this day,
his name is associated with the product he produced.
Can't say the same for Seiberling.
- [Narrator] Today, Firestone
is part of a global tire empire
that generates nearly $30 billion annually
and oversees nearly 2,000 auto repair centers nationwide.
- Cars wouldn't have gotten faster,
trucks wouldn't have gotten more capable
without the tires being designed by Firestone.
- [Narrator] And while Frank and Charles Seiberling
may not have remained at the helm,
their legacy continued at Goodyear.
- And the Seiberlings
remained large shareholders of the company.
And many of the men that they had hired into the company
went on to run the company themselves.
[dramatic music]
- [Narrator] Today, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
continues to be a global leader in tire manufacturing,
with annual revenues of nearly $20 billion.
- They built a structure and a framework to help Goodyear
continue to be one of the largest tire companies
in the world for the foreseeable future.
- The legacy of Goodyear and Firestone
is that they really helped birth
the American automotive movement.
They allowed cars to become what they become.
- As painful as that competition probably was
to both of these men, we benefit, to this day,
from that technology, to make us safer,
to make us faster,
to make the machines that we pilot every single day
the best they can be.