Black Wheels

We talked about why tires are black. Now we'll discuss black wheels:

It seems to me that black wheels on cars are the current popular style. I see them a lot on newer vehicles and in car ads. I drove by a car dealership the other day and there were five or six vehicles on their lot all in a row and all with black wheels. Maybe the car manufactures are trying to push them on us. I don't know.

In fact, my new car (well, it's over a year old now) came with black wheels:

At first I was thinking "I could live with them" even though I prefer more... blingy wheels. Then I lived with them. They got dirty if you looked at them wrong and they were hard to clean. And, as I said, I just didn't like the look of them. 

So when it was time to take off my winter tires, I left them on the black wheels and installed a set of BBS wheels which are much more pretty and don't get dirty as easily and are easier to clean.

I like the look so much more than the black wheels. I kept the winter tires on the black wheels to use when keeping a car clean is less important.

I don't know why black wheels are so popular, at least with automakers. I remembered being baffled by the large wheel phenomenon (which, to an extent, is still happening), too. 

What do you think of black wheels? Do you care? Or are they just mostly ugly? Let me know in the comments below.

Why is the Michelin Man White?

Has it ever bothered you that the Michelin Man is white and tires are black? Why is that?

The Michelin tire company was started in 1889 in France. Tires were (and are) made of rubber. But rubber is white. So tires were white. So the Michelin Man was probably made white for that reason. 

And Michelin is now running ads in the US with cartoon white tires on cars. Which I find kind of funny.

Tires stayed white until 1910 when the Goodrich tire company in the U.S. started putting carbon black into tire formulations. Carbon black acts as a catalyst during the vulcanization process, which turns soft rubber into the more durable and elastic substance we use in automotive tires and elsewhere. It not only prevents the rubber's deterioration by stabilizing dozens of chemical bonds, but it increases the material's tensile strength, or the maximum amount of stress it can bear before breaking. This is obviously a boon for tires, which face constant strain. There is still carbon black in modern tires.

What is carbon black? It is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil. The biggest use of carbon black in the world is tires. It is used as a pigment and reinforcing phase in automobile tires. Carbon black also helps conduct heat away from the tread and belt area of the tire, reducing thermal damage and increasing tire life.

Why is the Michelin Man still white after over 120 years of black tires? Well, you'd have to ask the company. But a black Michelin Man just would look strange, these days.

What do you think? Should the Michelin Man be black? Or are you okay with white? Let me know in the comments below.