This year, Goodyear celebrates 45 years of its most recognizable ultra-high-performance product line, Goodyear Eagle branded tires. Uniting the company’s exhilarating performance for sports cars with its heritage in the world’s premier racing championships, Goodyear Eagle tires are an icon both on and off the track.

The story of Eagle continues to this day, with its latest model – Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6 - being one of the best-sellers in Europe and Asia and recently introduced in the Americas. The story behind it incorporates fascinating innovation, evolving from the track to the street model after model, writing the history of motorsport and equipping some of the most desirable sports cars of the past half-century.

“Win on Sunday, sell on Monday”

The name ‘Eagle’ has become closely associated with motorsports, alongside the Goodyear brand, due to its frequent appearance on motorsports tires opposite the Goodyear logo. Goodyear had occasionally used the Eagle name before, but 1980 marked a significant milestone. That year, Goodyear increased investments to lead the high-performance tire market, applying its racing technologies and expertise to consumer products. To strengthen the connection between track and road, the company decided to use the same name for both its racing and ultra-highperformance tires: the Goodyear Eagle brand.

A Goodyear press kit of the era admitted “tires don’t have much inherent sex appeal”. Offering drivers tires chosen by their heroes Andretti, Earnhardt, Senna, Prost, Foyt, Unser and Petty was certainly a way to combat that. With one name to communicate the shared DNA between the race and road tires, the new Goodyear Eagle high performance road tires proved as popular as they were successful on the track.

The first official Eagle road tire was launched for the US market in 1981 and was followed by the Eagle VR50, developed soon after to meet the stricter European speed requirements. VR stood for ‘V-rated’, denoting that the tire met what was at that time the highest speed rating restrictions in Europe to be capable of sustained speeds of up to 130 mph (209 km/h). To develop the Eagle VR50, which had a directional ‘gatorback’ tread pattern derived from the company’s F1 wet tire of the era, Goodyear teams in the US and Germany worked together to develop a tire ready for the unrestricted speeds of the German autobahn. Back in America, it was chosen as original equipment on both the Chevrolet Corvette and Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.

More and more high-performance tires used the Eagle name to link back to Goodyear’s winning heritage. The Eagle GT variant had a prominent placement on Doc Brown’s DMC DeLorean time machine in Back to the Future, while Eagle ST became the go-to choice for muscle cars and Eagle NCT for luxury cars. It was in 1993, though, when a new legend was born.

Naming a tire after a car is one thing, but when that name remains on the side of millions of tires even today, over three decades later, it must have been special.

Eagle F1: To new levels of performance

In 1992, McLaren launched its McLaren F1, at the time the world’s fastest production car with a Guinness World Record speed of 240.1 mph (386.4 km/h). To meet the demands asked for this impressive feat of engineering, Goodyear developed a special tire for it: the Eagle F1. McLaren’s original press release^[1] highlighted the importance of Goodyear’s contribution: “Right from the McLaren F1’s initial design, the tire was considered as an intrinsic suspension element within the programme’s complex handling and comfort calculations. Weight, safety, noise and dynamic performance were all vital factors.”

The directional tread pattern in the VR50 proved so popular for its combination of dry handling feedback and wet weather grip that it became the inspiration for the next generation of Eagle Road tires in 1994 with the launch of the Eagle F1 GS-D2 (Grand Sport - Directional) and later GS-D3 in 2000. Directional patterns remained the key design philosophy until the launch of Eagle F1 Asymmetric in 2007.

As the weight, power and rim sizes of performance cars increased, Goodyear had to develop a tire with a stronger shoulder to handle this extra dynamic load. By using an asymmetrical design, Goodyear’s development teams were able to match these requirements and improve grip and dry handling without compromising on the predecessor’s renowned wet weather performance.

Back on the top step: The latest advancement in an iconic story

In 2019, the Eagle family moved up a level with the launch of Eagle F1 SuperSport, a new range of ultra-ultra-high-performance tires for ultimate performance on the road - and track. Available in SuperSport, SuperSport R and SuperSport RS variants, each a step closer to track day speciality than the last, this range is the ultimate celebration of the Goodyear Eagle brand through more than four decades of evolution.

The latest Eagle line has improved to meet the trends of the automotive industry over the past decade and a half, developing through generations to reach today’s Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6, which gives drivers the performance they’ve come to expect from an Eagle tire while meeting modern noise and emissions standards and catering for the demands of electrified vehicles, too.

Goodyear Eagle is still the choice of many premium manufacturers’ most exciting road cars, too. Between SuperSport and Asymmetric 6, Eagle F1 tires come as standard on performance cars as diverse as the Lotus Emira, Porsche Macan 4 Electric, BMW 1 Series and Audi S5. At the track day end of the range is Eagle F1 SuperSport RS, which was specially designed in collaboration with Porsche for the manufacturers’ RS models like the 911 GT2 RS and GT3 RS.

And Eagle F1 SuperSport was chosen also for the new Ferrari 12Cilindri, reigniting a popular partnership that has lasted over four decades as a mid80s Goodyear ad proudly set out: “Every Formula 1 Ferrari, every Ferrari 328 and every Ferrari Testarossa that comes to America comes on Goodyear Eagles. And only on Goodyear Eagles. Why? Because Mr. Ferrari wants it that way.”

About The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

Goodyear is one of the world's largest tire companies. It employs about 68,000 people and manufactures its products in 53 facilities in 20 countries around the world. Its two Innovation Centers in Akron, Ohio, and ColmarBerg, Luxembourg, strive to develop state-of-the-art products and services that set the technology and performance standard for the industry. For more information about Goodyear and its products, go to www.goodyear.com/corporate.

[1] McLaren Official PR: https://cars.mclaren.press/press-kits/f1

“Win on Sunday, sell on Monday”

Eagle F1: To new levels of performance

Back on the top step: The latest advancement in an iconic story

About The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

Image Source: The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company

Tagged: Eagle race tire

Trusted by Heroes, Chosen by Millions: Goodyear Celebrates 45 Years of Eagle Product Line