MANUFACTURING: Hot Tires

Last year the rubber industry bought 283,750,000 lbs. of cotton for use in tires. Therefore when U.S. Rubber Co. and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. announced last August that they had developed a much stronger tire by using rayon (TIME, Aug. 15), the makers of cotton tire cord were stirred to action. Last week the biggest one of all, Bibb Manufacturing Co. of Macon, Ga., announced the result—a cotton tire cord which it claims has 25% more tensile strength under friction heat developed at high speeds than the old cotton type. A Bibb customer simultaneously announced that tests of the new cord had shown it would last 317 hours under intense heat, while rayon cord failed at 143 hours, ordinary cotton at 87 hours.