It was 10 June 1846 when the Scotsman Robert William Thomson patented an invention that would change the history of the transport world.
The idea, filed in London, was called “Application of elastic supports around the wheels of vehicles, in order to reduce the effort needed to tow them, make their movement easier and reduce the noise they make when they move”. Unfortunately at the time there were still no bicycles or vehicles and therefore the idea went almost unnoticed.
Already in 1839, Charles Goodyear, succeeded in obtaining a product resistant to climatic changes that he used to coat the circles of the carriages.
In reality the man who invented the tire in his modern sense was Boyd Dunlop who, to speed up his son’s tricycle, thought of filling the tires with air, thus lightening their weight. He filed the patent on July 23, 1888 and the success came when a cyclist considered mediocre by the name of William Hume decided to use this prototype and won all the races in which he participated.
However, the priority of Dunlop’s patent was invalidated when the Thomson patent was “discovered”.
Over the years the Michelin brothers appeared who had the intuition to put the tires on a car, the rest is recent history.