BRIDGESTONE has received a important cope with Toyota to be the unique gear (OE) tyre provider for a future LandCruiser launch, with the Japanese companions having developed the forthcoming automobile and tyre partnership collectively within the South Australian outback.
The deal is regarded by Bridgestone because the profitable fruits of an effort to interrupt Dunlop’s conventional dominance as the important thing OE provider of tyres for LandCruiser fashions.
“Historically, now we have not had sturdy OE fitment on Toyota LandCruiser, which has been dominated by Dunlop up to now,” Bridgestone Australia and New Zealand gross sales director Claudio Sodano advised GoAuto.
“We made a extremely aware resolution (to attempt to win) OE fitment on the distinguished LandCruiser. We had our Japanese technical crew come over, and we went to a rural a part of South Australia to do some actually aggressive off-road (testing).
“We have now been actually profitable in successful the following LandCruiser mannequin and getting OE fitment on that (automobile), which was actually essential to us,” Mr Sodano stated.
Bridgestone received an earlier deal to provide Toyota with its Dueler tyres for some variants of the 300 Sequence LandCruiser (particularly, the VX and Sahara), however the rugged GR Sport (plus GX and GXL) continued on the Dunlop Grandtrek.
Nonetheless, whereas the LandCruiser Prado 250 Sequence launched with a trio of tyre suppliers, Bridgestone was not certainly one of them.
The Prado at the moment ships to Australia on a mixture of Dunlop Grandtrek (GX, GXL), Toyo Open Nation (Altitude), and Yokohama Geolandar (VX and Kakadu).
Figuring out the long run LandCruiser set to put on Bridgestone rubber isn’t straightforward, but it surely could possibly be the forthcoming LandCruiser hybrid, an up to date model of the Prado, or extra exotically, the anticipated ‘mini’ LandCruiser successor to the FJ Cruiser.
Given the deal with off-roading proficiency, the win might contain a Toyota-specific by-product of Bridgestone’s Dueler A/T 002 mannequin, launched in August 2024 and mixing components of freeway and all-terrain tyres.
Mr Sodano defined that the Toyota deal was received off the again of a posh tender course of that noticed Bridgestone awarded the LandCruiser tyre transaction based mostly on a specification pitch, backed up by real-world testing.
“We pitch what we will do (inside) our growth cycle and (the OEM) units out what they wish to obtain in moist braking, rolling resistance, and many others. We pitch that we will obtain it, are awarded it, and then you definately go and work in unison to realize these outcomes you might have primarily benchmarked,” he stated.
As soon as the Toyota automobile engineers and Bridgestone tyre tuning specialists had decamped to distant South Australia, it was a case of fine-tuning on the fly.
“We can have the choice to supply a number of specs and tunes,” Mr Sodano defined. “We’d (have made) 30-40 development adjustments and retunes. The automobile producer adjustments the suspension and steering, and we modify the tyres…all the time working with the OEM to get the ultimate end result.”
Whereas Bridgestone has chased Toyota LandCruiser enterprise for some time, the tyre agency has had extra success in recent times with its key rival within the Nissan Patrol.
The Y62 Patrol technology, which is in its twilight years regionally, is shod in Bridgestone Dueler 693 tyres, and Bridgestone was profitable in renewing its Patrol tyre partnership for the incoming, six-cylinder Y63 mannequin.
