Business: Wheel of Fortune

On a cool February evening in 1888 Scottish Veterinarian John Boyd Dunlop watched his small son pedal a tricycle along a Belfast street and into history. For the rear wheels of the boy’s tricycle Dunlop had fashioned hollow rubber-and-canvas tubes pumped full of air—two of the world’s earliest pneumatic tires. Within two years pneumatic tires were the rage of Britain’s cyclists, and Dunlop was busy trying to fill the demand.

From these modest beginnings Dunlop Rubber Co., Ltd. has grown into a mammoth holding company with 165 subsidiaries, 66,000 stockholders and 93,000 employees. Its 61 factories (23 outside the United Kingdom) turn out golf balls, tennis balls, foam rubber, tires, tubes, ‘raincoats; its Malayan rubber plantations (92,800 acres) are the biggest private landholdings in the British Commonwealth. With 1953 sales of $680 million (and a net of $14 million), Dunlop completely dominates the Commonwealth market for rubber goods. Dunlop, in fact, is often called a microcosm of the Empire.

The man who sits on the foam-rubber throne of Dunlop’s empire is big (6 ft., 200 Ibs.), grey-haired George Edward Beharrell, 55. In his realm he finds one flaw: Dunlop sales rank but fifth in the U.S.* Last week George Beharrell made a big move to correct this flaw. He announced that Dunlop will spend $5,500,000 to modernize its plant at Buffalo and streamline its U.S. sales organization.

Exit Dunlop. While Scotland’s John Dunlop first thought of putting his pneumatic tires on bicycles, it took an Irishman to gaze into the spinning wheels and see a fortune. Dublin Paper Merchant Harvey Du Cros, father of three famed bicycle racers, needed only to see his sons beaten by a man on Dunlop tires before he set to work. He promptly organized a tire company, persuaded Dunlop to join him, and with classic forethought predicted in his prospectus: “The pneumatic tyre will be almost indispensable for ladies and persons with delicate nerves.”

With the stamina of six-day bicycle racers, Harvey Du Cros and his sons set out to convert the British Isles, then the Continent, them the U.S. They built new factories in France, Germany, and Canada ; in seven “years the company was reorganized with $24 million capital, and John Dunlop sold his interest.

Enter Macintosh. At the dawn of the auto age, the company started its own rubber plantations in Malaya, bought textile mills to guarantee supplies of tire fabrics. But Dunlop expanded too fast, was caught in 1921’s commodity collapse with a disastrously big inventory of rubber. The Du Cros regime was ousted. In went Sir Eric Geddes and Sir George Beharrell, a brilliant management team.

At Dunlop, Sir Eric and Sir George swung the ax ruthlessly, began to diversify. They bought more wheel and rim plants, started making all kinds of rubber goods, from flooring to hot water bottles, and took over Charles Macintosh & Co., of raincoat fame. In 1928 Sir George hired his son, George Beharrell. who rose to a directorship in 1942.

Decoys & G Suits. In World War II. Dunlop lost factories in Germany, Japan and France.* When the Japanese army overran Malaya and cut off Dunlop’s major source of natural rubber, the company switched to synthetics. Dunlop invented and turned out the sand tire that carried the Eighth Army across the Libyan desert. Every fighter plane in the Battle of Britain used a Dunlop-made gun-firing mechanism. Dunlop also produced self-sealing gas tanks, bulletproof tires, barrage balloons, rubber dinghies, frogmen suits, G suits for fighter pilots, and countless trench coats for British officers. At war’s end George Beharrell moved up to managing director. As the British Empire began to crumble, he put Dunlop’s kingdom back together.

Under George Beharrell’s able direction Dunlop has just opened a $10 million tire plant in Brazil (original home of the rubber plant), is developing an “indestructible rubber resin,” which Dunlop thinks may replace some fabricated metals. For Dunlop there is always something new under the sun. The most recent: a mer maid fin for Actress Glynis Johns in the forthcoming movie Mad About Men. The film will carry an appropriate credit line: “Tail by Dunlop.”

*Top four, in order: Goodyear, Firestone, U.S. Rubber, Goodrich. * A Dunlop employee on leave to the R.A.F. dropped the first bomb on Dunlop’s plant in occupied France.