MARVELOUS ARE THE MICHELIN TIRES
One of Our Wonderful Industries of French Extraction Has Made a Record That Helps to Spread the Fame of New Brunswick and Neighboring Milltown, Where the Factory is Located.
Every famous car that flashes across town, a suburb of New Brunswick. Almost every American tourist who takes his automobile through the lands of the Aztecs; or through the vineyards of Italy; or across the Pyrenees; or over the Alps of Switzerland; or through the waving fields of Brittany; or into Russia, the Caucasus, India or other parts of the world carries the story of New Brunswick with him because he has provided himself with Michelin tires in order to get the utmost pleasure out of his journey.
It is needless to say that the Michelin factory at Milltown is one of New Brunswick’s proudest boasts. The entire establishment covers eighty acres of land. There are fifteen separate buildings covering nine acres of floor space. Six of the buildings have been enlarged within the last year. Two shifts of employees have been working every day since December 1907. The Michelin company has ten branches on the principal thoroughfares in ten of our largest cities as follows: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco and Seattle.
The Michelin factory near New Brunswick is the fourth of the great plants built by the company since the business was started in Clermont-Ferrand, France, away back in 1832. The other Michelin factories, in addition to the French establishment and that in New Jersey, are in London, England, and Turin, Italy. It is the proud boast of the company that Michelin tires are for sale in every country in the world where cars are used.
The closest possible manufacturing relations exist between all the Michelin factories. All the tire-making machinery used at Milltown, and all the materials that go into the construction of Michelin tires are imported. The materials, processes of manufacture, and the many exclusive or secret formulae developed after eighty years’ experience in the handling of rubber, are identical in all the Michelin establishments even to the minutest details.
The officers and department heads of the American factory are: President, Edouard Michelin, whose headquarters are in France; vice president, John C. Matlack; treasurer, E. Fontaine; assistant treasurer, R. E. Glass; sales manager, F. W. Libby. The factory is in charge of J. Hauvette Michelin. The purchasing agent is M. L. Cramer, and the advertising manager, R. B. Bramwell.
On Monday of this week the New York Automobile Trade Association held its second annual Carnival parade in which over four hundred gaily and grotesquely decorated cars participated. The Michelin Tire Company, of Milltown, N.J., which is a suburb of New Brunswick, won the first prize in the most important division, and thus once more attracted the attention of the automobile and sporting world to a home industry.
The Michelin float carried two rollicking rubber comedians from South France, known throughout the world as the Bibendum Twins, the same pair that were the heroes of the 1908 Carnival at Nice.
These rubber giants from Clermont-Ferrand were seated comfortably, surrounded by flags and bunting and many shields, each carrying the name of some proud Michelin victory. This unique exhibit added greatly to the general carnival spirit and won not only the first prize but the additional approval of all New York’s great newspapers, which is unique, as it is seldom that all the papers agree on anything.
The Bibendums were apparently built up from tires. Each figure carried a giant cigar. By most ingenious pneumatic operation their faces at one time reflected the utmost happiness and tranquility, and again they would assume every appearance of melancholia and distress.
The Bibendums, absolutely motionless at times, would rise suddenly to full height, throwing up their arms, and with bodies swaying and heads bent back, their faces would brighten up as if they knew in advance that the coveted first prize was to be their award at the end of the parade. The street urchins were quick to “catch on,” and they went rolling and laughing along Broadway in imitation of the antics of the Twins, much to the amusement of the older and more dignified, who enjoyed the day, however, no less than the children.
There is an elaborate and interesting story connected with the history of the Bibendum Twins. As the tale is told in France, these mighty curios were reared in Africa, the unusual offspring of a sturdy ostrich. Without injury to themselves they soon learned to devour or drink anything and everything, hence the name Bibendum. Broken glass, old horseshoes, nails, metals of all kinds and automobile trophies wherever offered are their regular diet, but, as the story goes, nothing satisfies their omnivorous appetites. Serious, grotesque, strong, weak, imperious, yielding, severe, comic, all in turn, the prize-winning Bibendum Twins were without doubt the most curious and most talked of travelers in all New York.
