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Michelin Pilot Sport 4S Ultra High Performance Tire 2014-2017
Michelin Pilot Sport 4S Ultra High Performance Tire 2014-2017
 
Designers: Michelin North America, Greenville, North Carolina, USA
Manufacturer: Michelin North America, Greenville, North Carolina, USA


A tire is one of those products drivers rarely think about, even though it is the only part on a car that connects it to the road. But for the industrial designers and engineers at Michelin, that connection between driver and driving experience is at the heart of their work and of product design for Michelin’s new Pilot Sport 4 S tire. Unveiled at the North American International Auto Show at the start of this year, the Pilot Sport 4 S has been carefully crafted to ensure that drivers experience firsthand how an ultra-high performance summer tire can take a drive from zero to exhilarating.

Designed for sports cars and high-performance vehicles, the Pilot Sport 4 S solves the “pleasure plus safety” equation for performance enthusiasts. It combines exceptional steering precision and directional stability with maximum grip on wet or dry roads. The Michelin product designers had another challenge: to create a new tire could successfully follow in the tracks of – and replace – the venerated Pilot Super Sport, which had become the industry benchmark for ultra-high-performance (UHP) tires.

In the world of UHP tires, high performance on dry and wet surfaces is often an either/or proposition. But Michelin engineers have found a way to make both work. The Pilot Sport 4 S tread’s outer part uses an innovative new hybrid compound that promotes grip on dry ground, while the inner part makes use of a new compound with silica and functional elastomers that give the tire consistent grip on wet ground. This combination epitomizes the Michelin Total Performance philosophy: to advance several performance characteristics on the same tire simultaneously, no matter how steep the technology challenge.

Commissioned track tests by a third-party organization in Germany confirmed that the long hours put in by Michelin’s engineers had paid off. The tire outpaced five top ultra-high-performance tire competitors in three critical areas: dry braking, wet braking and dry lap times.

Michelin understands that drivers choose the Pilot Family tire line to enable the very spirit of the machine. That is why the design process involves close collaboration with the world’s leading car makers -- Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes-AMG and BMW M -- to ensure that the features of the Pilot Sport 4 S complement the performance of these firms’ most exclusive car models.

One example of this level of design is the tire's aesthetic design features, which include Michelin's patented velvet sidewall branding, Premium Touch Design®. Michelin has filed 27 patents around this technology, and its designers have been gratified to see people spontaneously reach out and touch a tire for the first time. This innovation and focus on design may seem surprising for something as utilitarian as a tire, but it is not surprising from what may be one of the only major manufacturing firms founded by a fine arts major -- Edouard Michelin in 1889. And Premium Touch Design is also one of the reasons the Pilot Sport 4 S was recently awarded a Good Design Award from Japan’s Institute of Design Promotion.

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