Originally published at: https://www.pakwheels.com/blog/cars-tyres-always-black/
With so many colors in this world, did you ever wonder why car tires are always plain black? Cars come in many colors, but why not their tires? Let's find that out.
Tires are black, mainly due to a chemical called carbon black. It's used in the manufacturing of tires which provides significantly improved wear characteristics and heat-dissipation capabilities when added to rubber compounds. In reality, natural rubber is off- white color and in fact, the first rubber tires were white-colored until BFGoodrich TYRE company which is one of the notable tires manufacturing companies found out that addition of carbon black chemicals makes the tire more durable and stronger — making this a huge contribution to the tire industry.
(1919 Pierce Arrow)
The rubber used for making tire is basically of milky white color, but later carbon black is added as a stabilizer to turn the white color into black hence giving its black color. Additionally, making tires of black color is a sensible choice where matters like cleaning are concerned. If for example, tires were white or any lighter color, it would be hard to maintain their cleanliness and keep them in good looking state. Just imagine your car with white tires, and you already know what I mean. You will inevitably spend hours getting off the smears and smudges after every drive.
Most importantly tires are for functionality, not for beauty. If you want to flourish, you can insert tempting rims or hubcaps. Manufacturers focus on the safety of tires rather than beauty as most people would prefer safer tires over beauty any day.
Though it’s possible to make other colors by simply using other pigments in combination with natural white color, if you look at the pictures of old vehicles, you will be able to find out that there were times when tires weren’t always of black color. Pictures of cars with white tires would be found, and white tires kind of makes sense because when rubber is first gathered by the trees, it is naturally white.
Will there ever be colored tires?
Recently there have been several cases where cars tires have been designed in custom colors to make the vehicles look unique. Once in a blue moon, you will see older car models with white tires, although certain laws strictly prohibit colored tires due to a tendency to discolor public roads. One more reason for cars tires for always being black is that they don’t cause anything more than wear and tear that would require occasional repairs. You may not be able to purchase fully customized colored tires, but you might be able to customize the looks and feel of the visible sidewall of the tires. In present times there are a lot of customization processes like ‘tire white wailing’ which means to paint the outside of the tire for aesthetic purposes, but the tread and remainder of the tire remain black. Moreover, a company named bridge-stone in 2012 announced that they would start offering a few whitewall tire designs that will be both unique and colorful. Until that happens, cars of masses will keep on rocking black tires.
