Behind closed doors: Gibson Tyre Technology

The Gibson Tyre Technology is now a pretty big business and in such a short time which is quite impressive. Have you heard of them and always wondered what they are all about? Well, Josh Plews who is the founding owner and managing director of the business, at just twenty-five years old got in contact with us because he likes what we do here at Gatedrop. 
He put together this interesting article about the business, what they do, who is involved in the business and where they distribute to around the world.  



We started Gibson Tyre Technology in November 2014, after I sold my previous business within the tyre industry in 2012, naturally from being within that industry prior to starting this business I had built up some knowledge and contacts. We have grown Gibson into a global brand in under two years and I feel that not many people really understand what we do, or how far our reach is, partly due to most people are just super busy and to really dig behind the doors to get an understanding of this brand would take some time. I thought it would be a great idea to chat with you to show the people that support us, what we have been up to in this 22 month period since we started.

So to try to get a long story short, this is the scoop, Gibson Tyre Technology has been made a global company by meeting a truly phenomenal man, MR Jens Engelking. He was former director and part owner of Golden Tyre World Service, Jens met me at the start of 2015, he saw what my ideas were and immediately made a contract with me to manage all European territory excluding the UK, after that Jens passed me contacts all over the world to build my network with. Due to just parting ways with Golden tyre he was a wealth of knowledge and experience with the commerce side of the tyre industry, coming from a back ground within Pirelli Senior management in Germany, and also working as director at Golden tyre he was well in touch with this industry.

My idea was simple and effective, produce a tyre company for the off road motorcycle world, but with a big catch, become a software company not a hardware company, meaning we soley focus on the design and the development of the product. We own and understand all aspects of the tyre, including the design, the tools that produce the products and the intellectual property that we acquire from developing the tyre’s, including the compounds, so if tomorrow there is a revolution and the tyre world is changed on its head, we can stop what we are doing and start again with a better way of doing it. We are never locked into 10-20 year production lines. We can change our set up within a day and this is how apple works, it enables them to focus on the continuous development of the product without being held back by long term investment into production lines that cannot be developed quickly.  3D printing is something we use a lot, and that’s one technology that really excites me for the future, it’s going to really change the way we do things as humans, people don’t realize it yet, but in the future you will be printing anything from shoes, to Jeans, to tire’s, this means that if a breakthrough like this made its way into the tyre world, the real skill would be in the design and development of that tyre, not the producing of the tyre. So, in my opinion new businesses should not be focused on producing products, they should be looking at designing products and having a strategy that enables them to be the very best designers and developers of their field, after all isn’t that what apple are?

We use some of Britain’s most skilled and honorable tyre consultants and chemist’s, PHD experts in the rubber and tyre field, we have a video being released soon to show people the whole picture of the brand, including some of these experts that work directly with us for off road motorcycle tyre’s, this is how we are able to understand every aspect of the tyre and produce such an incredible product.

We design all tyre’s in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, South west of the UK, our expert CAD Designer Alex, has worked within the jewellery industry producing custom spec watch designs, he is a super talented 25-year-old man that I love working closely with.

We work closely with some of the most experienced and well respected tyre technicians from the off road motorcycle industry, for the vast knowledge and understanding of track side testing and tyre performance, through combining business experts, with tyre design experts and consultant’s, all with huge passion for their job. I have been able to be the glue that sticks all these core people into one group all working for the mastermind alliance of Gibson Tyre Technology.

Where are the products sold?

Well, we started the business just with the intention of developing some tyre’s, building our brand and just seeing where it ends up, we knew our passion was high, but we didn’t believe people would support us so quickly and really push to have our products in their market.

The products are currently sold in the following areas:

Canada
USA
New Zealand
South Africa
All major European markets
Australia
Malaysia

We are currently discussing moving into Mexico, Chile and Israel. It’s quite incredible to have built this from nothing to a genuine British global company, using British designer’s, technicians and consultants, and then combining even more European support with more experts in commerce and track side technicians including Luigi Mazzoni, the owner of the Speedy mousse patent and our Chief Tyre Technician. Luigi worked at Golden tyre for 9 years and was a famous mechanic in the 90s for Chicco Chiodi, who is a three times world champion.  Current test rider for Gibson Tyre Tech, this year “Luigi or JJ as he’s known” had the idea to invent his own mousse design, based on his previous experience with the mousse and the tyre, we supported him fully in this idea and he now owns the Speedy Mousse Patent. This is the most exciting mousse product to enter the market, and it shows clearly how our company is working, we are focused on new products, new ideas, and new ways of going about things, we don’t like to follow in the paths of others.  Working together we have developed and produced an awesome product that will now enter the global market under the Gibson Moutech, Speedy mousse brought to you by JJ, it’s a really big achievement from a great team of people, I’m proud of what we do, and why we are doing it.

Words: Josh Plews