Keeping the Legend Alive

As the XJ220 celebrated its 25th  anniversary, the original batch of tyres were also 25 years old and fast depleting. Whilst many components can be remade or refurbished, the same cannot be said of the rubbers.

A chance meeting between Don, Justin and Christophe de Valroger of Bridgestone at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, led to discussions of developing a new tyre. As the world’s largest tyre manufacturer that employs 150,000 people, it was never going to be about the economics of such a project, but keeping a legendary supercar alive.

A film ‘The Legend Lives On’ celebrates the coming together of the original cast that were involved in the development of the original tyre.

“A project this exciting though doesn’t deserve to be secret” added Christophe De Valroger, Vice President Consumer OE at Bridgestone Europe “car lovers everywhere acknowledge the appeal of the Jaguar XJ220 and its history, and for that reason we decided to tell the whole story in film.”

It sees Alastair McQueen, Shinichi Watanabe, test drivers Andy Wallace and John Nielsen reunited on Bridgestone’s Rome test track with XJ220 chassis no. 004. With the original moulds scrapped, it shows a new tyre being developed by Tyre Development Engineer, Paulo di Luise with only paper drawings of the 25 year old tyre as the starting point. He explains

“As a child, I used to sketch supercars and the XJ220 was one of my favourite subjects, such an iconic British legend. I was really proud to be responsible for such a project”.

This however was not to be a remake of the first Bridgestone tyre, with new technology and new compounds, the successor could outperform the original. Shinichi Watanabe added

“We are now doing what we have achieved 25 years ago with a new technology and we can still use the old technology effectively. I think it’s amazing”

The tyre took four months, 17 specs and hundreds of laps to prototype and test before the final hand built tyre is created.  Through the use of modern compounds the new tyre is able to offer better comfort as well as improved tracking and grip. It was felt that the tyre not only performed well but also gave feedback to the driver and did not look drastically different to the original.

Justin said: “It’s not just about knowing tyres, this is about knowing everything about the car and how it is supposed to handle. I’m one of the very few people that have been lucky enough to drive this car regularly during the last 23 years, and I’ve covered more than 100 000 miles.

“But don’t just take my word for it” he continued, “with Bridgestone we brought the engineers and test drivers from 25 years ago back together, so we were pretty much guaranteed to do the job right.”