Bridgestone Battlax BT45

Manufacturing across 24 different countries, Bridgestone is one of the world's most popular tyre makers, and years of experience tell us that a Bridgestone tyre won't let you down. Founded in 1931 in Fukuoka Japan, Bridgestone was named after their founder Ishibashi as ishi means "stone" and bashi "bridge" in Japanese. Bridgestone set about using Japanese technology expertise to create the highest quality tyres. In 1949 Bridgestone started manufacturing bicycle tyres and by 1958 these had become motorised – the 50cc Bridgestone motorcycle was born. As time went on, Bridgestone realised that their expertise was primarily in tyre making as most of their Bridgestone motorcycle tyres were being sold to their Japanese rivals Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha. By 1953, Bridgestone were the largest tyre manufacturer in Japan. Bridgestone were first floated on the stock market in 1961 and they opened their first plant abroad in 1965 in Singapore. Bridgestone America was set up in 1967 and Bridgestone were rapidly becoming a popular brand worldwide by the seventies.