The white lettering on top of the Fort Dunlop building near Erdington, Birmingham West Midlands, site of the old works
Urban Splash acquired the building and the hectares ( acres) of land[2] from English Partnerships in 1999 and started work on drawing up proposals in conjunction with Advantage West Midlands, the regional development agency who funded the reclamation of the land.[4] Urban Splash hold the building on a 999 year lease from Advantage West Midlands. The company traced its origins to 1889, when Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd was formed in Dublin to acquire and commercialise John Dunlop's patent for pneumatic tyres. This was the period of the bicycle boom. In 1896 the company incorporated a subsidiary in England[1]. Initially the company subcontracted manufacture, but by 1902 it had its own manufacturing subsidiary, Dunlop Rubber Co. Ltd, in Birmingham, England. By the early 1980s Dunlop was heavily in debt and in severe financial difficulties. In 1984 it sold the US tyre subsidiary, Dunlop Tire Corporation, to its management, and sold its interest in Dunlop India to the Jumbo Group of Dubai[8]. Then in 1985 the company was acquired by BTR plc.[9] The road tyre assets, including the right to use the Dunlop name for road tyres, were immediately sold to Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd of Japan (which had grown out of Dunlop's original Japanese factory). Sumitomo Rubber Industries sold tyres for road vehicles under the Dunlop brand from 1985 to 1999. In 1999 Sumitomo RI and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company of the US formed a joint venture. Goodyear took control of the Dunlop tyre assets in Europe and the US, and Sumitomo RI continued to sell Dunlop tyres in other countries. The Dunlop Tyres company in South Africa is now owned by the Indian company, Apollo Tyres. In India the Dunlop brand is owned by the Ruia Group of India, which acquired Dunlop India from the Jumbo Group in 2005.
Size: 5342px × 3316px
Photo credit: © Pat Savage / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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