Imagine the competition. You can win $1 million if you correctly say the name of the world’s largest tire manufacturer.
Your brain immediately jumps to giants. Michelin? Goodyear? Bridgestone? These are educated guesses. They are also wrong.
You’d be even more shocked if you found out who actually holds the title. It’s LEGO.
Since 2011, the Danish toy company has held the Guinness World Record for the largest annual tire production. It sounds like a joke until you look at the numbers. In 2010 alone, LEGO produced 381 million tires. This number is not only important in the toy industry. It exceeds the performance of real tire manufacturers.
How LEGO became the best tire manufacturer
The official Guinness category defines “toy tires”, but the distinction hardly matters when the scale is so large. LEGO makes many vehicles. Cars. trucks. Construction machinery.
Each of these plastic vehicles needs tires.
Guinness points out that while these small rubber tires won’t fit your Honda or Harley Davidson, the material is surprisingly similar to domestic cars. They use a rubber compound that meets real automotive industry standards.
This was not always the case.
Tires are a relatively late addition to the LEGO parts list. The first LEGO tires appeared in series #400 in 1962. Since LEGO was founded in 1932, it took the company 30 years to develop a separate tire component. Before 1962, LEGO sets had wheels. They simply lacked the distinctive rubber tire layer that we associate with the brand today.
LEGO Records big picture
LEGO’s dominance in tire production is just one chapter in a long record-breaking story. If you look around the Guinness Book of World Records, you will notice that LEGO is constantly mentioned.
The company holds the record for the largest private collection of LEGO sets. It holds the record for the tallest LEGO tower. There are even very precise records, such as the largest sundial built from LEGO bricks or the longest distance walked barefoot on LEGO bricks.
Most of these obscure records belong to fans. Hobbyists build towers. Fans walk on bricks. However, the tire manufacturing record belongs to the brand itself.
Who makes the most tires for real cars?
If we remove the plastic bricks and look at the actual car industry, the hierarchy changes.
With the exception of toy manufacturers, Michelin will be the world’s market leader as of 2021. Behind them is Bridgestone. Next up is Continental. Then Goodyear. Sumitomo rounds out the top five.
The list of the world’s 30 largest tire manufacturers covers several continents. You can find companies from Asia, Europe and America.
But you won’t find them in Denmark.
That is another way LEGO stands out. While the true tire giants compete with steel and rubber for market share, the world’s smallest company by volume remains the undisputed king of tires.
The plastic wheels keep spinning.
The price of rubber
Everyone agrees that Lego has the title of producing the most tires. But when it comes to the most expensive set ever sold to a customer, the crown is elsewhere.
ZTyre.com’s Dubai office holds this record.
In 2016, they moved a set of four tires for nearly $600,000. This is not a typo.
These are not the ordinary rubber for your daily commute on your daily commute. custom pieces encrusted with diamonds. The whole assembly was covered in gold.
Flashy? Yes. Practical? Debatable.
Who would buy such expensive tires? Probably not someone worried about tread wear. It’s a status symbol wrapped in rubber.
The most expensive tires in the world. Made in Dubai. Sold in 2016.
Still think your luxury car is impressive?
