Founded in 1888 by the Michelin brothers, André and Édouard, in Clermont-Ferrand, France who were running a rubber company and like all the others the company started manufacturing tires for bicycles and horse-drawn carriages it wasn’t until the 1890’s when the company enter the automobile tire making business after designing their own version of the pneumatic tire, one that did not need to be glued to the rim. In 1891 Michelin took out its first patent for a removable pneumatic tire which was used by Charles Terront to won the world’s first long-distance cycle race, the 1891 Paris–Brest–Paris..
In the 1920s and 1930s, Michelin operated large rubber plantations in Vietnam.
In 1934, Michelin introduced a tire which, if punctured, would run on a special foam lining, a design now known as a run-flat tire (self-supporting type).