The Nylon-Rayon War

The wonder was that the U.S. motorist still dared set foot in a car. In full-page magazine ads he was warned that unless he bought nylon tires, he dared not drive at high speeds. Leering down from billboards, other ads warned him that if he did buy nylon tires, his car would start shaking him up like a concrete mixer. Battling to supply the $300 million worth of reinforcing yarn used in the 105 million tires made each year in the U.S.. manufacturers of nylon and rayon cord were waging one of the bitterest and least restrained advertising campaigns in modern business history.

The fight was started by the rayon manufacturers in dismay over nylon's inroads into a market that rayon had dominated since it knocked out cotton tire cord after World War II. Developing a new, high-strength rayon called Tyrex, the rayon companies formed an association to promote it, even sent teams to high schools to lecture teenagers on the superiority of Tyrex over nylon. Nylon makers, led by Chemstrand Corp.. fought back not only with advertising but with price cuts. Before long, tire-cord prices dropped so sharply that the rayon makers, working on tighter profit margins, found themselves in trouble. Industrial Rayon Corp., with two-thirds of its business in tire cord, lost money last year, and the four other major rayon producers' profits were down.

sb Chosen Targets. Though Tyrex advertising does not neglect the motorist, its prime targets are Detroit's automakers and their dealers. Playing on the auto-men's conviction that nothing is so important in selling a car as a smooth ride, Tyrex made much of the fact that when a car with nylon tires is parked overnight, its tires tend to develop a flat spot at the point of contact with the road and will go back to a perfect circle only after several miles of driving. Christening this condition "nylon thump," the rayon makers hammered away at it so successfully that Detroit still puts Tyrex on more than 98% of its new cars.

In rebuttal, nylon makers emphasize the tensile strength that gives nylon greater resistance than rayon to severe impacts --especially at the high temperatures generated by turnpike driving. And though independent research seems to suggest that Tyrex is strong enough to withstand any normal driving hazard, the nylon message has reached the motorist's ear. In the first quarter of this year, nylon won more than half (51.9%) of the replacement tire market, though it made only the slightest of inroads (from 1.3% to 1.6%) in the new-car business.

Dark Horses. Tire manufacturers have an unstated leaning toward nylon, partly because the public is willing to pay up to 10% more for nylon tires. They would also like to see an end to the fight so that they will no longer have to stock duplicate sets of tires. Seiberling Rubber Co. has tried to compromise with a combined nylon-rayon tire that, the company insists, has the advantages of both cords and the disadvantages of neither. Ironically, both nylon and rayon may lose out in the end. Experiments by tire-company researchers suggest that Dacron, Fiberglas or steel may eventually prove the most suitable tire cord.

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