Tweel

SilentUnicorn · Mar 19, 2005

Pretty neato. so much for chrome spokers.

mark

https://www.michelinman.com/difference/releases/pressrelease01102005a.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/automo...;partner=rssnyt

Bruce Bowker · Mar 19, 2005

Bizarre looking. I suppose if a generation grew up with them they would look fine. I still have problems with huge wheels and tires with 1 inch sidewalls.

Wonder if this airless thing will take off.

Bruce

rulle7 · Mar 19, 2005

Interesting idea!
Takes some getting used to visually, though.

Banjo · Mar 19, 2005

I hope they will develope a way to mount them on traditional rims, With sidewalls of course.
I bet, with the radically different look, the tuner guys would eat those up.

usasma · Mar 19, 2005

Seems to me that they'd need some sort of sidewall to cover the poly spokes with. Otherwise stuff would get caught in them and throw the balance off!

MattP · Mar 21, 2005

The NY Times article mentions a lot of noise from the spokes, so it does seem that a sidewall would help things.

I wonder how much of that thing you will have to replace when it comes time. If they just recap, the road gator population will boom, if they replace the whole wheel, it will get very expensive.

lawguy · Mar 21, 2005

In other articles I have seen, they have mentioned that a band of rubber will stretch over the outside....which is close to what you have with a 35 aspect ratio tire anyway /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

waltesefalcon · Mar 28, 2005

Holy cow thats weird. I admit I am intrigued but not sure I could get used to the idea of a tire without air. I agree with the comments that if you will have to replace the whole wheel everytime one wears out it could become a very expensive proposition to get new tires.

Rippthrough · Mar 30, 2005

The outer band of rubber is replacable, so is the rubber spoked part.

Steve_S · Mar 30, 2005

I dunno, looks like the first hard corner you hit would tear the thing to pieces! I doubt we'll see a true road-ready version of this in the near future.

Rippthrough · Apr 15, 2005

No, it's actually much, much, much more rigid laterally than an ordinary tyre.
It should help the turn-in and the 'feel' throught the wheel massively.

77MidgetMkIV · May 4, 2005

I can picture the slats getting fouled up with snow and getting way out of balance...side-walls would be a must up here in the N.E.

Rippthrough · May 6, 2005

I image there would be a very thin rubber sidewall in a production version, I think the prototypes run without one just to attract media attention.

JCooper · Jun 4, 2005

This is not really new technology. An Australian company has been marketing something similar for a couple of years - but to the offroad drivers https://www.croctyres.com/. As an offroader, I thought they were pretty slick - no chance for a flat which can be a big issue in backcountry driving. For a street tire I think the big flaw would be the lack of adjustability that changing air pressure in a pneumatic tire allows.

Jackie Cooper

bugimike · Jun 25, 2005

besides all of the innovation and history they have aquired, after the U.S. G.P. fiasco, can anyone be really symathetic with a company like Michelin? Good tires,great history, lousy sportsmanship!

Rippthrough · Jul 3, 2005

What was lousy about their sportsmanship!? They reimbursed the spectators out of their own pockets, and are giving away 20,000 tickets to the next GP.
They had a saftey problem, you can't send 14 drivers to their deaths just because of 'sportsmanship'

Radford · Jul 3, 2005

[ QUOTE ]
besides all of the innovation and history they have aquired, after the U.S. G.P. fiasco, can anyone be really symathetic with a company like Michelin? Good tires,great history, lousy sportsmanship!

[/ QUOTE ]

What are you talking about. Do you really believe that the Michelin shod teams should have raced anyway? I think Michelin took the heat and did the right thing. The Teams, Michelin, and the drives tried to work things out, but Ferrari and the FIA wouldn't have it.

lawguy · Jul 6, 2005

So Michelin had no idea of the speeds, cornering forces and temperatures that would be present?

This was a big screw up for them and something they should have been able to avoid. Refunding the money is nothing to be lauded as a grand gesture. Their lack of foresight, research, attentiveness...whatever you want to call it, caused the problem in the first place. Michelin may have permanently (or at least long term) damaged F1 in the U.S. where it is already far less popular than other racing. That is a shame and, as I said, something that should have never happened.

Does that make a company "bad"? Of course not, but making a decent product 99.99% of the time does not erase a monumental screw-up, expecially one this visible.

Radford · Jul 7, 2005

From reading and listening to several sources on F1 I gather that Michelin knew what speeds, conering forces and temps were in play last year and the year before. Indy was resurfaced last year which changed the dynamics. Bridgestones sister company Firestone had huge problems with tires for the INDY 500 and for a stockcar event at the brickyard.

Should Michelin been paying attention, yes. Should the FIA have noticed, yes. Should a copmpromise been made on race weekend YES. Is Michelin alone to blame - NO.

Guest · Jul 10, 2005

And I thought the wire wheels on British cars were a bitch to clean. These wheels would be a royal pain in the you know what to clean.

Tweel

Share this page

Yoda

Obi Wan

Jedi Knight

Yoda

Jedi Trainee

Jedi Knight

Jedi Knight

Yoda

Senior Member

Yoda

Senior Member

Jedi Trainee

Senior Member

Freshman Member

Yoda

Senior Member

Jedi Knight

Jedi Knight

Jedi Knight

Guest

Guest

Similar threads