BFGoodrich

The B. F. Goodrich Company was founded by Dr Benjamin Franklin Goodrich at Akron, Ohio, in 1870, at first making rubber hose. It was the first American maker of pneumatic motor-car tyres in 1896, built the first tubeless tyre in America in 1947, made the first radial tyres in the United States in 1965 and patented an early run-flat design in 1967.

Its place in the four-wheel-drive world rests on two tyres. In 1976 BFGoodrich created the all-terrain category with the radial All-Terrain T/A, the ancestor of the KO2 of 2014, and in 1980 it introduced the first radial mud tyre, the Mud-Terrain T/A, the ancestor of the Mud-Terrain T/A KM2 and KM3. The company has raced its tyres in the desert since 1973, with 28 overall wins in the Baja 1000 and 13 in the Paris-Dakar rally; the KM3's Baja-derived toughness, Krawl-Tek compound and 'Mud-Phobic' shoulder bars are the descendants of that programme.

The Goodrich Corporation stopped making tyres in 1988 and sold the tyre business and the B. F. Goodrich name to Michelin, which had also bought Uniroyal from Clayton, Dubilier & Rice; the two were run as the Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Company until Michelin completed the integration in 1990. Of the original factories only Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Woodburn, Indiana, still ran under the BFGoodrich name in 2023, and the brand's British site is operated as part of the Michelin group.

The Mud-Terrain T/A KM2 and KM3 are made in the 235/85R16 size (load index 120/116, speed rating Q, ten-ply load range E) that suits the Land Rover Defender's 16-inch wheels, and are stocked by Land Rover parts specialists such as John Craddock for the Defender; it is an aftermarket rather than a factory fitment.