It’s easy to become smitten with the exterior design of a car and overlook the rubber it’s sitting on. Of course wheels have long been a prime aspect to help the aesthetic of a vehicle in profile, but what about the tire it’s wrapped in?
Kumho’s design team decided to address this. They looked into creating a radical new visual seal, something that would become immediately recognizable from a distance and become an identifier for the brand, more than just a simple embossing on the sidewall. What they came up with was the Maxplo, a concept tire that recently took home the Platinum award in the Futuristic class of the Italian A’ Design Awards for its innovative design.
The Maxplo is an all weather, all terrain concept tire with a super-low aspect ratio. Its large intersectional tread blocks and stable shoulder blocks provide responsive handling, high-speed stability and traction on dry roads while circumferential and three dimensional grooves pump water out from beneath the tire’s footprint, ensuring minimized hydroplaning and optimal traction in the wet. In slippery on/off road conditions the tread broadens to optimize traction and braking power, while spikes are unveiled to deal with the dangers of snow and ice. The internal structure is reinforced to enhance handling, improve high-speed capability and ease travel over snow and mud terrains.
What Kumho’s developed then is an invincible tire, a tire that’s ready for anything you can throw at it. It’s something you’d expect to see the Batmobile or the Light Cycle riding on. And it’s no wonder they scooped first place in the highly coveted design competition.
