After more than half a century of making exclusively radial tires, Pirelli has begun to make traditional cross-ply tires again for classic car lovers wanting tires with an original look and feel, but still capable of offering modern advantages.
Urged on by manufacturers such as Ferrari and its renowned Classiche department, Pirelli has created a new tire for the Collezione family and launched it at the Padova Classic car and bike show in Italy. As a result, a historic name is reborn: Stella Bianca, which was Pirelli’s longest-lived tread pattern and the first modern tire in the Italian firm’s history, introduced in 1927.
In 1927, the first transatlantic phone call between the United States and Great Britain was made, while the first radio sports broadcast was made in Italy. It was from a horse race at San Siro racecourse. A mile away, Pirelli’s engineers were giving life to a new tire: the Stella Bianca. The design remained part of the range for decades, right up to the beginning of the 1950s, when it made way for the Pirelli Stelvio tire. Before it resigned, the Stella Bianca enjoyed a final moment of glory: winning the Italian Grand Prix at Monza with Alberto Ascari on a Ferrari 500 wheel.
CROSS PLY COMES BACK
Today the Pirelli Stella Bianca tire returns to the market: looking identical to the original design, but with modern technology inside. The compounds used, reflect the best of Pirelli’s technology to guarantee efficiency, safety in wet conditions, and respect for the environment. The tire construction, however, honors past traditions, namely Pirelli’s cross-ply tire production from a half-century ago instead of radial tires. This choice helps recreate the latest Stella Bianca tire to guarantee the dynamic originality of the cars it will be fitted on. This decision posed a particular challenge for the Izmit factory in Turkey, where Pirelli’s motorsport and Collezione tires are made, as they effectively had to re-learn the techniques of the past.
In 1927, Europe was recovering from World War I and technical research was entering a new era, helped by the economic recovery seen throughout the ‘Roaring 20s’. There were not many cars on European roads back then; most were either luxury or sports cars that are still among the most collectible models today. But the 1921 Alfa Romeo 20-30, Diatto Tipo 30, Itala 61, Lancia Lambda, OM Superba, Fiat 525SS and other gems of the Italian automotive industry needed tires that were capable of coping with their high performance: this is how the Pirelli Stella Bianca was born. The product was sufficiently ahead of its time that it was still being fitted to cars such as the Ferrari 166 or Jaguar XK120 in the 1950s, having originally been created for cars of the 1920s.
The same Stella Bianca tires were used at the highest levels of motorsport, where important information was gathered to improve road car tires. So Pirelli’s first tire of the modern age, with the longest-lived tread pattern in the history of the company, proved to be equally at home on everyday cars, sports cars, and even vans. Now it’s back to equip the world’s most desirable classic cars.
For more visit www.pirelli.com.
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