Public | |
Traded as | : CTB S&P 400 Component |
Industry | Manufacturing |
Founded | 1914 |
Headquarters | Findlay, Ohio, U.S. |
Products | Tires |
Subsidiaries | Avon Tyres |
Website | CooperTire.com |
Cooper Tire & Rubber Company is an American company that specializes in the design, manufacture, marketing and sales of replacementautomobile and truck tires, and subsidiaries that specialize in medium truck, motorcycle and racing tires. With headquarters in Findlay, Ohio, Cooper Tire has 60 manufacturing, sales, distribution, technical and design facilities within its worldwide family of subsidiary companies. In July 1960, the company became a publicly held corporation and was listed on the .
Cooper owns the UK-based Avon Tyres brand, which produces tires for motorcycles, road cars and for motor racing.
The company slogan is "The tire with two names ... the company and the man who built it."
The earliest corporate lineage for Cooper Tire was the M and M Manufacturing Company, founded in 1914 in Akron, Ohio by John F. Schaefer and Claude E. Hart, who were related by marriage. Their new company produced tire patches, tire cement and tire repair kits. They purchased The Giant Tire & Rubber Company of Akron, a tire rebuilding business, in 1920, and in 1922 moved the business to Findlay, Ohio, at a site at the intersection of Lima and Western avenues that is still occupied by Cooper Tire, adjacent to The Cooper Corporation facility. The Cooper name originates from 1919 when Cincinnati auto-parts dealer I. J. Cooper formed The Cooper Corporation in Findlay, to manufacture new tires. The Cooper Corporation, the M and M Company, and The Falls Rubber company merged in 1930 to form the Master Tire and Rubber Company. The company name was changed to Cooper Tire & Rubber Company in 1946.
The Cooper oval trademark with the Cooper Knight headgear was first registered and used in 1941. In those early years of the brand's identification, the logo also included a banner proclaiming the tires' "armored-cord" construction. The company's red, white, and blue logo would become one of the most easily recognized emblems in the tire industry.
During World War II the company, known as Master Tire and Rubber, manufactured pontoons, landing boats, waterproof bags and camouflage items, inflatable barges, life jackets and tank decoys, as well as tires, to supply the Allied forces. The U.S. government recognized the company's contribution to the war effort in a 1945 ceremony bestowing the Army-Navy ‘E’ Award (for excellence). Soon after the war (1946) the company name was changed to Cooper Tire & Rubber Company.