Dunlop Rides High

Few corporations have a closer or more constant contact with the ordinary Englishman than the 75-year-old Dunlop Rubber Co. Dunlop makes the hot-water bottle he tucks into bed with him, the galoshes he depends on in England's soggy climate, the hose he waters his roses with, and the cricket bat he wields. Most of all, Dunlop makes his tires: half of all British vehicles roll on Dunlops. With car sales strong, business is bullish. This week the company will report that profits jumped 14% last year to $77.5 million on sales of $792 million.

From Uganda to Indianapolis. The world's biggest rubber-goods manufacturer outside the U.S., London-based Dunlop has 51 plants in Britain and 60 more in 15 countries, including one in Buffalo, N.Y. Though its sales rank behind those of the U.S.'s big four (Goodyear, Firestone, U.S. Rubber, Goodrich), Dunlop boasts that it is the most technologically advanced and versatile of the lot. American tires are meant for high-speed driving on well-paved streets, but Dunlop develops different tires for different kinds of roads. Its Hi-Mubroad-tread tires are specially designed to grip wet British roads, and its engineers at Birmingham's sprawling Fort Dunlop plant--known to employees as "The Vatican of Rubber"--have fashioned tires for smooth German autobahns, cobblestoned French lanes and rock-strewn African trails.

To test the tires and to reinforce its image, Dunlop eagerly participates in auto racing. Every world championship Grand Prix winner since 1959 has worn Dunlops; the Indianapolis Lotus of Current Champion Jim Clark (see SPORT) is similarly equipped.

Up from Tricycles. Dunlop rolled into the rubber business aboard a tricycle. Scottish Veterinarian John Boyd Dunlop fashioned a set of pneumatic tires for his small son; they rode so well that he went into business making racing cycle tires. The company still manufactures 4-oz. bike tires for racers. But it makes 1,800 other varieties as well.

Tires represent 60% of Dunlop's business. The rest includes such diverse items as disk brakes, moving sidewalks, even high-fashion boots. With Britons enjoying more leisure time than ever, Managing Director Reay Geddes, 52, is working to see that they spend it using Dunlop golf clubs, tennis rackets, fishing tackle--or latex foam mattresses. Tall, grey-eyed Geddes, who has roamed the world as a salesman, is also busily reorganizing his company. "We had become too big and too varied for a central form of management," says he. Geddes has given more autonomy to managers of Dunlop's 130 subsidiaries, spends much of his time flying to his factories and overseas rubber plantations on inspection trips. The planes he rides, naturally enough, touch down on Dunlop tires.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.