The former Continental Tire North America plant, which Titan purchased in 2006, was retooled late last year to produce giant earthmover units.

“This project has been an unbelievable experience for a large group of Titan employees – starting with myself,” said Titan Chairman and CEO Morry Taylor. “I know a lot of people think I’m a little different, and that’s fine, but I’m very lucky to have a great team. Titan has some of the best employees in this business and they proved it today by producing this tire in seven months, starting from scratch. A site that used to be a soybean field is now the beginning of a state-of-the-art giant tire facility.

Taylor claimed the new Titan radials “will out-perform current steel radials because of the patent pending process of Titan’s new steel belted radials.” Titan is seeking a patent on the design, and in testing on smaller tires found the design delivered tire life “could be 20% to 30% greater than conventional tires.”

Titan said it would be shipping finished 63-inch tires “in the next 60 to 90 days to select mines.” (Tire Review/Akron)