“Reaching the right technical level and establishing the Pirelli tyre on the market was a long, tough job. There were countless problems to solve and, just when it seemed they had been worked out, new ones took their place as speeds and acceleration increased, along with heavier loads.” When this was how, in 1946, Alberto Pirelli recalled the pioneering years of his father Giovanni Battista. It was the dawn of the automobile, and also tyre technology needed to be invented from scratch. The immediate problem was to keep the tyre fastened to the rim while driving. So Pirelli imagined two big, inextensible beads that would be wedged, even with difficulty, into the groove of the rim. This was the tyre with the “Ercole-type” attachment. The year was 1901.
The first was Hercules
After the first patent in 1894, in 1901 Pirelli invented its own innovative system for attaching the tyre to the rim – and named it Ercole. At last, a tyre that was suitable for a new, powerful means of transport: the motorcar