GOODYEAR PLAN HAS BLOWN OUT

A plan to turn 2023 into a Goodyear for Gen3 has run into a major roadblock.

A lack of production capacity for the unique 18-inch Supercars rubber has killed the plan for a brand swap despite early optimism at Supercars and Goodyear Dunlop Tyres Australia.

The original intention was to re-brand from Dunlop to Goodyear to coincide with the switch to the Gen3 racers next year.

But the latest internal investigations, conducted just before Auto Action went to press, have shown there is insufficient capacity at Goodyear’s motorsport rubber facility in Europe.

“The plan is dead,” a Dunlop insider tells Auto Action.

But the motorsport manager at Dunlop, Kevin Fitzsimons, refuses to comment or even discuss the Goodyear proposal.

The Dunlop-to-Goodyear move was originally a plan being touted by the former CEO of Supercars, Sean Seamer, who revealed it to Supercars team bosses last year.

It has been bubbling along since then but without coming to any firm conclusions.

The change would have been part of a switch by the giant Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company from the USA, the owner of Dunlop, as it moves towards a single motorsport branding for all of its tyres.

Michelin has already made a similar switch, with its BFGoodrich competition tyres – common in off-road racing including the Dakar Rally – moving from American to French branding under the Michelin umbrella.

Goodyear’s change of policy follows its buy-out of Cooper Tyres, a major supplier of off-road and SUV tyres around the world including Australia.

Cooper is the parent company of Avon Tyres, traditionally a British brand and with major supply deals in the classic racing world.

Avon tyres are used on the vast majority of the world’s historic single-seater racing cars, including classic Formula One cars.

So when Goodyear bought Cooper it also got Avon, and an opportunity to spread its winged-tyre branding across the whole motorsport world.

Australia eventually emerged as a potential piece of the puzzle, because of the long-term involvement of Dunlop as the control supplier of Supercars racing rubber.

Dunlop has been a cornerstone of touring car racing from the start of the Supercars era, and even earlier when Dick Johnson Racing rolled on Dunlop at a time – before a single supplier – when Bridgestone dominated with the Holden Racing Team and cars also competed on Yokohama tyres.

Ironically, Goodyear was the brand of choice in the earliest days of V8 touring car racing as drivers including Allan Moffat and Ian ‘Pete’ Geoghegan raced on their ‘blue streak’ American racing rubber.

Auto Action believes the Goodyear plan mainly floundered because of the difficulty in switching production from Japan to Europe, because Goodyear does not have sufficient capacity in its factory. But a move to Europe would also have created a difficult supply line, created logistical dramas on the timing of production, and forced a price increase.

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