Tyres, Roads and the Red Guide

The Michelin Guide

Course 1 · Chapter 2 · Origins: Tyres, Roads and the Red Guide

The Michelin Guide began as an advertisement. At the turn of the 20th century a tyre company in central France wanted more people to drive, and it published a free booklet to help them. This chapter follows that story from the Michelin brothers' rubber business to the first guide of 1900, the legend of the table, the arrival of the stars in the 1920s and 1930s, and the guide's war years. Names, dates and figures are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

The Company

Clermont-Ferrand

In 1889 two brothers, André and Édouard Michelin, took over a small rubber-goods firm in Clermont-Ferrand, in the Auvergne, which they renamed after themselves (check). André was the businessman and Édouard the engineer and artist. The firm made rubber parts and soon turned to tyres.

The detachable tyre

Pneumatic (air-filled) tyres had been developed in the 1880s, with the Scottish-born inventor John Boyd Dunlop prominent in the story (check). Michelin patented a detachable tyre for bicycles in 1891, and its use by the winner of the long Paris–Brest–Paris race that year made its name (check). In 1895 the brothers fitted pneumatic tyres to a car, the Éclair, in the Paris–Bordeaux–Paris race (check).

The market problem

The firm's customers were few, since in 1900 there were only a few thousand cars in France (check), and cars were expensive. If more people drove more, they would wear out more tyres. The company's answer was to make driving easier and more attractive.

Marketing as publishing Michelin was not the only French business to use publishing to create a market. In The Tour de France 2, the sports paper L'Auto launched a bicycle race to sell newspapers; Michelin published a guidebook to sell tyres. In both cases a commercial interest created a national institution that outlasted its original purpose. Both stories should be read with that in mind: the founders' motives were commercial, and the cultural importance came later.

The First Guide, 1900

The booklet. The first Guide Michelin appeared in 1900, the year of the Paris Exposition Universelle, and was given away free. A print run of around 35,000 copies is often quoted (check).
The contents. It was a practical manual for motorists: how to change and repair a tyre, maps of towns, lists of garages, petrol stations and mechanics, and hotels. Restaurants were a small part (check).
The slogan. André Michelin's preface is quoted as saying that the guide "appears with the century and will last as long as it" (check). It is a fine line, and a good one to check against a copy of the original.
The editions. The company added more editions for other countries in the following years, including a Belgian edition in the 1900s and a British Isles edition in 1911 (check).
The maps and signs. From 1910 Michelin also published road maps, and the company put up road signs and kilometre markers in the countryside, a form of public service and advertising together (check).

The Table Story

Point (check each)	Detail
The story	André Michelin is said to have gone into a tyre dealer's workshop and found a pile of free guides propping up a workbench. He concluded that "a man only respects what he pays for" and decided to charge for the guide.
What followed	From 1920 the guide was sold, at a price of seven francs, and it began to include a list of restaurants in Paris (check).
The doubt	The story is widely repeated, including by the company, but it is hard to trace to a contemporary source, and some historians think that it is a convenient tale (check). Rising costs, a bigger guide and the postwar economy are other reasons for charging.
The lesson	It is an example of a good story that is probably true in its outline and unproven in its detail, a case to test with the six questions in Chapter 10.

Restaurants and Stars

Growing food. As tourism increased in the 1920s, the guide gave more space to restaurants. In 1923 the company began to cover regional restaurants as well as Paris ones (check). Inspectors were sent to check them.
The first star. A star for good restaurants appeared in 1926 (check).
Two and three stars. In 1931 the guide introduced the three-level system of one, two and three stars, with descriptions that link the stars to travel: "worth a stop", "worth a detour" and "worth a special journey" (check). The idea ties the quality of the cooking to the driver's journey and so to the use of tyres.
The Green Guides. In 1926 Michelin published the first of its regional tourist guides, the Green Guides, which gave stars to sights and landscapes (check). The same idea was used for monuments.

The War and After

The Occupation in 1940 to 1944 disrupted the guide, and its publication stopped or was reduced for some of those years (check). Michelin maps were used by the Allied armies in 1944 (check), and the guide returned in 1945. The company was criticised after the war for its dealings under the Occupation, which are a subject of historical research, and it should be described only from the record (check). In the 1950s, with cheap cars and the spread of paid holidays, which began in 1936 (check), the guide's audience grew.

A British comparison Britain has its own claim in the story of the tyre. The pneumatic tyre was developed by the Scottish veterinary surgeon John Boyd Dunlop, who patented a version in 1888 (check), and Dunlop's company was a main rival to Michelin. Michelin opened a British tyre business before the First World War, built a factory in Dundee and published a British guide from 1911 (check). British motorists had their own guides: the Automobile Association was founded in 1905 and began its handbooks soon after, and the Shell guides began in the 1930s, with the poet John Betjeman among their authors (check).

Check the details The founding story of the guide is told many times, often by Michelin itself. Check the dates of the first guide and of the stars, the print run and the preface wording against the digitised originals and an independent history. Treat the table story as a legend until you find a contemporary source. The company's wartime record should be taken from historians and archives.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Draw up a timeline from 1889 to 1945 with at least eight entries, and mark the ones you would want to check.

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Test the table story as a source: what supports it, who told it and when, what are the alternative explanations, and what would you want to see?

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Compare the Michelin Guide and the Tour de France as marketing projects that became national institutions: what did each company want, and what did each become?

→ Solution

Quick Reference

The company: founded in Clermont-Ferrand in 1889 by André and Édouard Michelin (check)
The guide: first free edition in 1900; paid from 1920; stars from 1926 and 1931 (check)
The idea: make driving easier, so people drive more and wear out more tyres
The legend: the table propped by guides, probably a story