More than 13 decades of adventure in photos and videos
Through a range of anecdotes, videos, and photos – sometimes never seen before – Michelin is revealing important moments in the company’s history and showcasing the visionary spirit behind our success that still guides us today.
On this day 132 years ago, shareholders unanimously named Edouard Michelin Managing Director partnership at the Annual General Meeting. On May 28, 1889, the company changed its name to “Michelin et Compagnie".
So began an adventure that saw a small company with 50 employees in 1889 become a major Group that now employs 124,000 people!
130 YEARS OF HISTORY WITH MANY MORE ADVENTURES TO COME
Throughout our history and still today, Michelin has shown our ability to adapt and overcome any challenge, from world wars to financial and economic crises and now the COVID-19 pandemic. The Group’s passion, avant-garde spirit, and taste for innovation and challenge persist 130 years later, as exemplified by our new strategic plan, “Michelin in Motion”, unveiled last April. Reaching carbon neutrality and using 100% sustainable materials in our tires by 2050, accelerating our growth in areas beyond tires, becoming a world leader in hydrogen mobility…: there is no end to our ambition, which should lead to many new adventures to share with future generations!
THE BEGINNING OF THE MICHELIN STORY
When Elisabeth Pugh-Barker was growing up in Scotland, her uncle used to make bouncing rubber balls for her. Elisabeth’s husband, Edouard Daubrée, had just launched an agricultural machinery business in Clermont-Ferrand, and she attempted to replicate her childhood toy in his workshops. Edouard and his cousin Aristide quickly came to appreciate the properties of this surprising material and decided to use it in their production. In 1889, André and Edouard Michelin, the grandsons of Aristide Barbier, took over the family business. The company was almost bankrupt, down to just 50 or so employees. The Michelin brothers were looking for new ways to use rubber when they began producing tires in 1891…