Bridgestone

Bridgestone Tire Company Ltd. is a Japanese tire manufacturing company, created in 1931 by Shōjirō Ishibashi. In 1988, Bridgestone Americas became the largest tire and rubber company in the world by merging with The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company, an American company founded in August 1900 by Harvey Firestone, for the sum of 2.6 billion dollars.

In 1992, with the strong intention of integrating Bridgestone’s business in the United States, the combined company decided to move its headquarters to Nashville, Tennessee. From 1997, the company entered the race of tire manufacturers for Formula 1. It then became, in 2007, the exclusive supplier of tires for all the teams on the grid until the end of the 2010 season.

Bridgestone Americas today is characterized by an international group of companies resulting in 52 factories and more than 50,000 employees across the Americas.