Continental Gislaved (formerly just Gislaved) is a Swedish manufacturer of rubber tires. Until 1980, Gislaved produced tires for cars and trucks, today only for passenger cars (including SUVs).
History
Gislaved was a Swedish car tire manufacturer. Gislaved was formed in 1893 when the brothers Carl and Wilhelm Gislow started manufacturing rubber products in the municipality of Gislaved. The company's first products were balls and galoshes. In 1904, Gislow's factory began to produce bicycle tires, and in 1905 a car tire was released.[1] The production of the first tire took a whole day, the work was personally supervised by General Director Wilhelm Gislow.
The first Gislaved car tires were not durable. The carcass of the tires used several layers of textile fibers without rubber layers between them. Such tires quickly collapsed. In 1912, company management went to Stockholm to watch the Olympics. They took a few spare tires with them. The last one broke down on the way back, the car did not even have time to return home to Norrköping. Because of this, it was decided to suspend tire production until a more reliable design was found.
Tire production was resumed, in 1926. The new design used layers of cotton thread cord separated from each other by a layer of rubber. These tires were called Gislaved Nord, and the novelty did not go unnoticed.