Avon Tyres to North America
Canada and the U.S. will finally get a North Americanized-version of one of Britain's most famous performance-oriented tires.
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company will be selling a unique line of Avon Tyres for passenger car, light truck, sport truck and motorsport uses later this year.
The Avon Tyres USA line is the first to have been designed and engineered using consumer feedback data, says Russell Datz, of the firm's PR agency, Brandware PR. This data was collected and analyzed by The Tire Rack (www.tirerack.com), which Datz describes as the U.S.'s largest independent tire tester, through its www.tirerack.com web site.
To create the market-specific North American line, says Datz, Cooper engineers and designers from Findlay, Ohio, collaborated with Cooper-Avon designers in Melksham, England.
The American and English designers used data submitted by over 60,000 consumers who say they have more than 1.5 billion kilometers of real world tire use.
Datz says this feedback data included noise and comfort requirements, performance preferences and durability insights, and data from The Tire Rack's year-round multi-brand tire tests was also used for benchmarking various tire attribute targets.
As a result, says Datz, motorists can now choose a true ''consumer's choice'' line of tires that ''combines Avon Tyre's 119-year European history and rich motorsports heritage with the unique demands of North American highways and byways.''
Some of the tires will be built in England and some in the U.S.
Beginning late this spring, says Datz, Avon Tyres USA will introduce Avon Tech, a lineup of Ultra High Performance (UHP) tires including:
- the Tech M500, a Z-rated (with a W-rated cap), asymmetrical summer tire
- the Tech M550, a Z-rated (with a W-rated cap) all-season directional tire, and
- the Tech R, a high-traction, D.O.T. approved tire for motorsport use such as SCCA Solo and road racing, launching April 15.
The Tech ST, which Datz says ''addresses the growing high performance sport truck market,'' will launch in the fall of 2004.
Avon Tyres will initially be sold through The Tire Rack's retail and wholesale distribution network, which includes more than 3,200 Recommended Installers in the U.S. There are none in Canada, but there are plans to change that.
This doesn't have to stop Canadian buyers, says Matt Edmonds, the vice-president of marketing for The Tire Rack.