In The World Of Custom Cars,

one thing that is not customised as such is tyres,

they are black, occasionally with white side walls, but what if you could have illuminated tyres, above a woman adjusts her stocking using the light emitted by the Goodyear tyre on an October night in 1961, photograph Getty images, in the early 1960s, Goodyear employees William Larson and Anthony Finelli worked together to create the world’s first neothane automobile tires, neothane was just a fancier name for urethane, the chemical compound invented three decades earlier by German chemist Otto Bayer. Unlike traditional tires, which required multiple layers of rubber as well as fabric and a laborious process to manufacture, neothane tires were grippy, squishy, responsive and easy to make. But the advantages didn’t end there, neothane tires were also translucent, could be dyed in various colours, and, as Goodyear demonstrated, they could even be fitted with lights for a unique visual effect, 

apart from the cost of producing and maintaining illuminating car tires, which was prohibitive, the practicality of the tire was questionable. After only a few miles, the wear and tear and the dirt on the roads would cover the tires in soot, and rendering the glow pretty much useless, but above all, the problem was safety, neothane tires just didn’t do very well in rainy conditions and when driving at high speeds, as they didn’t hold up to hard braking due to the relatively low 250-degree pouring temperature of the compound. So after 10 years in development, Goodyear decided to scrap the project without ever bringing the tyres to market,

but they did feature on the Golden Sahara II as can be seen in this video, I wonder if a coloured tyre could be made today would the public buy them?