Posted on 05/28/2021 7:25:15 AM PDT by mylife
American tire manufacturer Goodyear once created tired illuminated car tires that glowed from the inside thanks to multiple lightbulbs.
In the early 1960s, Goodyear employees William Larson and Anthony Finelli worked together to create the world’s first neothane automobile tires. Neothane was just a fancier name for urethane, the chemical compound invented three decades earlier by German chemist Otto Bayer. Unlike traditional tires, which required multiple layers of rubber as well as fabric and a laborious process to manufacture, neothane tires were grippy, squishy, responsive and easy to make. But the advantages didn’t end there. Neothane tires were also translucent, could be dyed in various colors, and, as Goodyear demonstrated, they could even be fitted with lights for a unique visual effect.
The versatile material allowed Goodyear to build a tubeless, cordless tire that was supposed to revolutionize the industry, and to show just how revolutionary it really was, they even put lightbulbs inside the tires to make them glow. The wheel well of the tire housed 18 tiny bulbs the driver could activate by pressing a button, and they were powered by the battery through visible wires.
(Excerpt) Read more at odditycentral.com ...
It is cool. They should do that with tires today with highly reflective material baked into the tires.
Pimp my ride!
pics at link
LED before LEDs.
“Light ‘em up!”
Now with LEDs and wireless power transfer we can not only illuminate the tires but display messages and graphics.
For one, the material was too expensive for tire production.
The tires also performed poorly in wet conditions and tended to melt when drivers braked too heavily–talk about safety hazards!
There were also reports, such as the quote below, that the peculiar glowing tires fascinated passers-by and other drivers, even causing them to keep on driving…right through red lights.
https://www.classiccarcollection.org/goodyears-glowing-tires/
But according to the picture, they were helpful in adjusting nylon stockings.
Fascinating.
reminds me of the car in repoman
Based on the 250F comment, it sounds like these tires were built with thermoplastic urethane.
I don’t know tire temperature range offhand, but if these could be made with a thermoplastic urethane that could withstand high enough temperatures, it would certainly make recycling of old tires easier.
I’m not sure if the cordless feature is still practical, but that would also make recycling easier.
Old tires are still a real problem and being thermoset (IIRC), they basically get ground up or burned which is complicated by the belts/cords.
What could also be interesting might be a traditional tire carcass with a replaceable urethane tread - basically a designed-to-be-retreadable tire. You could pay for the carcass once and then get the treads melted off and recast. Could also opt for different treads by season potentially.
For those who want proof:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISeA8ppZwlo
Persistence of vision...it’s science.
like BLM
Bookmark
(Took this pic on my way home on the SW Freeway in Houston a couple of weeks ago. When I drove past him on the left I had to go over into the shoulder lane a bit to keep from having the Ben-Hur chariot thing done to my tires).
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