50 Fun Facts About Michelin

The first Michelin Guide was handed out free in 1900 to encourage which group to travel more?

Motorists were the target: the Michelin brothers reckoned that more driving meant more worn tires to replace. France had fewer than 3,000 cars on its roads at the time.

What is the official name of the Michelin Man, the mascot built from a stack of tires?

Bibendum comes from a Latin toast about it being time to drink, which appeared on his first poster in 1898. He is one of the oldest trademarks still in use anywhere.

Which substance, added to rubber from 1912, turned tires black while the Michelin Man stayed pale?

Carbon made tires tougher and longer-lasting, and black. Before that they were a pale grey-white, which is why a mascot first drawn in 1898 is the colour he is.

Which French city has been Michelin's home since the brothers took over a struggling rubber firm there in the 1880s?

Clermont-Ferrand still houses Michelin's headquarters and its museum. The yellow and blue worn by the city's biggest sports club are the company's colours.

In the Michelin Guide's classic definitions, a three-star restaurant serves food said to be worth what?

A special journey is the three-star promise, while two stars merit a detour. The wording dates from the 1930s, when the guide still existed to keep drivers out on the road.

Which French carmaker did Michelin rescue from bankruptcy in the 1930s and control for some forty years?

Citroën passed to Michelin, its biggest creditor, when it went bust in 1934. Under tire-company ownership it launched the 2CV, before being sold to Peugeot in the 1970s.

Which city's first Michelin Guide, published in 2007, awarded about twice as many stars as Paris held?

Tokyo collected 191 stars in that debut edition. One explanation offered was sheer numbers: the Japanese capital has about four times as many restaurants as Paris.

In which Asian city did a hawker stall selling soy sauce chicken win a Michelin star in 2016?

Singapore got its first Michelin Guide that year, and two street stalls made the starred list. Queues at the chicken stall stretched to two hours after the announcement.

Which British chef, the first from his country to win three Michelin stars, handed them all back in 1999?

Marco Pierre White walked away from the kitchen, saying the pressure of keeping the stars had made the work monotonous. At 33 he had been the youngest chef yet to reach three.

Which food is the specialty of Sukiyabashi Jiro, the ten-seat Japanese counter that once held three Michelin stars?

Sushi made Jiro Ono's counter famous worldwide, helped by a 2011 documentary about him. Michelin dropped it in 2019 because the general public could no longer book a seat.

The Michelin Man was adapted from a rejected poster that its illustrator had drawn for what kind of business?

A brewery in Munich had turned the drawing down: a stout, regal figure hoisting an enormous beer. André Michelin suggested swapping the drinker for a man made of tires.

The Michelin Man's name comes from a Latin toast about drinking written by which Roman poet?

Horace wrote the line in his Odes some 1,900 years before a French tire poster borrowed it. The phrase was already on the drawing that Michelin reworked into its mascot.

In the 1898 poster that introduced him, the Michelin Man toasts rival tires with a goblet holding what?

Nails and broken glass filled the goblet, to show that a Michelin tire could swallow whatever the road threw at it. Scrawny rival tires look on from either side.

In English editions of which comic series does the Michelin Man cameo as a wheel dealer in Switzerland?

Asterix in Switzerland gives him the walk-on part in several translations. The original French album used the mascot of a petrol-station chain instead.

Which British designer helped convert London's Michelin House into shops, offices and a restaurant in 1987?

Terence Conran and publisher Paul Hamlyn redeveloped the 1911 building together. Michelin had opened it as a British headquarters where drivers could pull in to have tires fitted.

Which tire design, patented by Michelin in 1946 and first sold as the X, became the global standard?

Radial tires gripped better and saved fuel, and the idea came from a former accountant on Michelin's research staff. American makers held out against them for another two decades.

What is the main selling point of the Tweel, Michelin's combined tire and wheel with flexible plastic spokes?

It needs no air, so it can never go flat or burst. The spokes flex to soak up bumps, doing the job that pressure does inside an ordinary tire.

Michelin's first breakthrough was a pneumatic tire, patented in 1891, that came off for quick repair on which vehicles?

Bicycles came first: a rider with a puncture had turned up at the factory, and his glued-on tire took hours to fix. Michelin's detachable version went on to win a 1,200 km race.

The Micheline of the 1930s put Michelin's rubber tires on which kind of vehicle?

Trains called Michelines gave a remarkably smooth ride on French railways, but each car needed up to 20 tires and could suffer flats. The idea lived on in rubber-tired metros.

Safety fears over Michelin tires left only six cars racing in a 2005 Formula One Grand Prix at which circuit?

Indianapolis saw 14 cars peel into the pits after the warm-up lap, their tires judged unsafe at full speed through Turn 13. Fans who sat through it were later offered free tickets.

Michelin tires were on the winning car at the first running of which French endurance race, in 1923?

Le Mans 24 Hours began with Michelin rubber on the winner and on nine other cars in the 33-strong field. By 2009 the company was supplying 41 of the 55 entrants.

Which American tire brand, founded in Akron, Ohio, in 1870, was bought by Michelin along with Uniroyal?

BFGoodrich began by making rubberised hoses, sold mostly to fire brigades, before it ever made tires. Its tire business passed to the French company around 1990.

Michelin North America has been headquartered since the 1980s in which South Carolina city?

Greenville got a Michelin tire plant in 1975, and the North American head office followed about ten years later.

Which NASA vehicle landed on Michelin tires supplied by a factory in Norwood, North Carolina?

Space Shuttle tires came with the Norwood plant when Michelin bought an American rival's tire business in 1989, adding spacecraft to a range running from motorcycles to earthmovers.

Which supercar ran on purpose-built Michelin run-flat tires that cost about $25,000 a set?

Bugatti Veyron tires had to cope with speeds beyond 250 mph, and could be fitted to the wheels only in France, a service that cost $70,000.

Which sport is played by the French club founded in 1911 as AS Michelin for the tire company's workers?

Rugby has been the club's game since Marcel Michelin, son of co-founder André, set it up. The team still plays at a stadium that bears his name.

Before he joined his brother to save the family rubber business, Édouard Michelin seemed destined for which career?

Artist was the plan until the failing firm called him home. He went on to run Michelin for half a century, with a string of firsts in wheel and tire design to his name.

The struggling firm the Michelin brothers took over in the 1880s made rubber parts mainly for what?

Farm machinery needed its valves and gaskets, and the firm also sold rubber balls and brake pads. Tires came only after a stranded rider wheeled a puncture into the yard.

What colour is the cover of the Michelin restaurant guide, a shade that gave the book its nickname?

Red was already the cover colour of the first free edition in 1900, and the book is often simply called the Red Guide.

Michelin's Green Guides also award up to three stars, but to what instead of restaurants?

Tourist sights get the stars in the Green Guides, which cover countries, regions and cities far beyond France and come in several languages.

Which Michelin Guide award, introduced in 1997, marks restaurants serving good food at moderate prices?

Bib Gourmand flags value rather than luxury, and a few holders go on to greater things: the Chicago bakery Kasama won a full star a year after receiving one.

What do the crossed fork-and-spoon symbols in the Michelin Guide rate, on a scale of one to five?

Comfort is what the cutlery measures, from one pair for a comfortable room up to five for a luxurious one. Printed in the guide's signature colour, the symbols mean the place is judged pleasant as well.

Which symbol has the Michelin Guide awarded to outstanding hotels since 2024, in place of stars?

Keys go to hotels judged on design, service, character, value for money and what the place adds to its neighbourhood.

What sight in a tire shop reportedly convinced André Michelin to stop giving the Michelin Guide away free?

Copies propping up a workbench persuaded him that people only respect what they pay for. The guide went on sale at seven francs, and the advertisements were dropped.

In 1944 the 1939 Michelin Guide to France was reprinted for which group, who prized its town maps?

Allied forces asked for the reprint because the guide's maps were judged the best and most up to date available. Normal publication resumed a week after victory in Europe.

Which was the first American city to get its own Michelin Guide, published in 2005?

New York came first, with 500 restaurants across the five boroughs and 50 Manhattan hotels. Michelin had taken 105 years to cross the Atlantic.

Which French cook of the 1930s became the first person to hold six Michelin stars across two restaurants?

Eugénie Brazier ran both restaurants in and around Lyon, and her tally of six went unmatched for more than sixty years.

Which French chef, who died in 2018, amassed more Michelin stars across his restaurants than anyone before him?

Joël Robuchon held more than 30 stars at restaurants from Paris to Las Vegas. A rival guide had already named him Chef of the Century back in 1989.

Which chef became the first Scot to win three Michelin stars, at his own London restaurant, in 2001?

Gordon Ramsay won the third star for the London restaurant that carries his name. A documentary that followed his pursuit of it made his fiery kitchen manner famous.

Which American chef won three Michelin stars for both Per Se and The French Laundry?

Thomas Keller was the first American chef to hold the top rating at two restaurants at once. He also advised Pixar on Ratatouille and designed the dish its characters cook.

In which 2015 film does Bradley Cooper play a chef chasing a third Michelin star in London?

Burnt follows Adam Jones, a two-star chef rebuilding his career after a long absence. In one scene the feared Michelin inspectors turn out to be ordinary businessmen.

Which San Francisco chef became the first woman in the United States to earn three Michelin stars, in 2018?

Dominique Crenn won the third star for Atelier Crenn, having already been the first woman in the country to reach two. As a child she was taken along to starred restaurants by her father.

Bangkok street cook Jay Fai, awarded a Michelin star in the city's first guide, is known for wearing what?

Ski goggles are her trademark as she cooks every dish herself over charcoal, including a crab omelette that costs upwards of 1,000 baht.

French chef Marc Veyrat sued Michelin in 2019, saying an inspector wrongly thought his soufflé contained which cheese?

Cheddar would have been an insult at an Alpine restaurant built on local cheeses such as Beaufort and Reblochon. Veyrat blamed the mix-up on the dish's yellow colour.

Juliane Caspar, who in 2008 became the first foreigner to edit the French Michelin Guide, came from which country?

Germany also gave the French guide its first female editor in Caspar. A newspaper back home joked that the choice was like Mercedes hiring a Martian to develop its cars.

What rule do Michelin Guide inspectors follow so that restaurants cannot give them favoured treatment?

They dine anonymously, and Michelin pays for every meal. Inspectors are advised not to reveal their job even to their parents, in case the family boasts about it.

In which Southeast Asian country did Michelin run large rubber plantations during the 1920s and 1930s?

Vietnam was then under French colonial rule, and harsh conditions on the Michelin estates gave rise to a famous labour movement, Phú Riềng Đỏ.

Michelin's ten-wheeled tire-testing car of 1972, the PLR, earned which creepy-crawly nickname?

The Centipede, or Mille Pattes in French, weighed 9.5 tonnes and carried a test tire in its belly, spun by a V8 engine of its own.

Which driver took the last Formula One win on Michelin tires, at the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix?

Fernando Alonso inherited the lead when Michael Schumacher's Ferrari engine failed. The result helped Michelin to a second straight constructors' title before it left the sport.

A 1966 deal had Michelin making tires sold in America under the Allstate name by which retailer?

Sears was selling a million of the Michelin-made tires a year by 1970, at a time when most American cars still rode on older bias-ply designs.