How Detroit Ended Up With This 80-Foot-Tall Tire Left Over From The World's Fair

Detroit recently experienced quite the dust up over its new Hollywood-inspired roadside sign not appearing to live up to the hype, but there is one roadside landmark almost universally loved by residents. It even appears on the same freeway as the not-that-bad-you-guys Detroit sign (though on the opposite side of town). That’s the giant Uniroyal tire on I-94, which turned 60 years old this week.

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The giant tire has been a staple of life along I-94 since 1965, though it started life as a ferris wheel at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, according to the Detroit Free Press:

Uniroyal, formerly the U.S. Rubber Co., is now owned by Michelin, a French tire maker. U.S. Rubber was founded in 1892 in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and is one of the 12 original stocks that made up the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The company built the Ferris wheel, which still boasts of being the largest non-production tire-scale model ever, to be the centerpiece of its pavilion. Some famous folks rode in it, including Jacqueline Kennedy, Telly Savalas, and the Shah of Iran.

The tire is not made of rubber, but a polyester resin and fiberglass.

And if the tire were scaled to a car, the vehicle would be 200 feet tall.

After the fair, the New York Times reported Uniroyal offered to give away the $750,000 structure to New York — or whatever municipality wanted it — as long it covered the cost to move and set it up, estimated to be about $300,000.

New York passed, but Allen Park asked for it.

According to the Free Press, it took 22 trucks to haul it to Michigan from New York, and, over time has transformed from a whitewall tire to a radial. It also used to have a big nail in it, but it was auctioned off and removed.

And there the tire has stood, next to the freeway in Allen Park, Michigan, for nearly its entire existence. Since its installation, the giant tire has become so much more than an advertisement for a tire maker. The 80-foot-tall tire greets both visitors and homeward-bound citizens alike heading east toward the city from the Detroit Metro Airport.

I travel a lot in this gig, and I can attest to the feeling of seeing the giant tire as proof I’m well and truly home. And plenty of folk will have a chance to see this giant living legend this week, as the city is flooded with people for the NFL draft pick. Some 300,000 people are expected to flock to a city with only 670,000 residents.