Bridgestone’s history in Mexico dates back to 1937 and the creation of the El Centenario rubber company, which was acquired by The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. At the end of 2008, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO) announced the new corporate name for all the companies pertaining to the group around the world, with Mexico adopting the company’s current name: Bridgestone de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
After almost eight decades operating in the country, Bridgestone Mexico celebrated the production of its 100 millionth tire at its Cuernavaca Plant in Morelos in 2015. This milestone positioned the company as the indisputable leader in the production and sale of tires in Mexico.
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1937
Hulera El Centenario is founded, which starts out manufacturing rubber products and retreading tires.
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1958
The Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. acquires Hulera El Centenario, producing, for the first time ever, Firestone tires in Mexico.
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1964
Hulera El Centenario changes its name to Firestone el Centenario, S.A.
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1978
Firestone El Centenario goes public on the Mexican stock exchange, floating 51% of its social capital.
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1988
Bridgestone acquires Firestone, and Firestone El Centenario becomes Bridgestone Firestone de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.
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2008
The Bridgestone Corporation and its business unit in the Americas, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO), decide to use the name Bridgestone as the corporate name for all of its companies around the world. The company’s operations in Mexico are now known as Bridgestone de Mexico.
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2015
A new business unit is created to coordinate operations in Mexico, Costa Rica, Central America and the Caribbean, Colombia and Ecuador: Bridgestone Latin America North, BS-LAN.
Bandag in Mexico
In 1957, Roy Carver, an inventor and industrial pump sales representative, visited Germany to promote his products. While there, he was amazed by how the Germans retreaded the tires on their cars.
His curiosity led to him to seek out a meeting with Bernard Nowak, a German who invented this process. As a result of this meeting, they agreed to bring this tire-retreading technology and its corresponding patents to the United States, leading to the foundation of Bandag Incorporated on December 20, 1957 in Muscatine, Iowa.
The name Bandag is the result of combining: BAN: Bernard A. Nowak. D: Darmstadt (Nowak’s hometown in Germany). AG: The equivalent acronym to LTD in German.
The company has spent more 50 years providing services for the transport industry, in addition to creating the cold-cure tire retreading process. Bandag has revolutionized the global retreading industry through the introduction of extraordinary processes that increase the lifecycle of tires, thus helping to protect the environment.