Saturday 9 March 2024

Ferris Wheels,

or 'eyes' as they are sometimes called, seem to be popping up everywhere, 


photograph Bettmann Archive/Getty Images, but here is one of the strangest ones that I have ever seen, the Uniroyal Giant Tire, it was created by the United States Rubber Company for the 1964 New York World's Fair, where it functioned as a Ferris wheel, 

photograph Flickr/Carlos Felipe Pardo, after the show it has served as a static display in Allen Park, Michigan, alongside Interstate 94, between the Southfield Freeway interchange and Outer Drive overpass, the tire was shipped to Allen Park in 116 sections, loaded onto 22 railroad cars, and reassembled in 1966, 

photograph Wiki Commons/MJCdetroit, although it looks like a giant rubber tire, the 12-ton structure is constructed of steel and polyester resin with a fiberglass surface. Of course, that hasn’t stopped people from trying to “deflate” it, as arrows have been removed from time to time. Uniroyal even stuck an 11-foot, 250-pound “nail” into the tire in 1998 to promote its self-repairing tires, when the nail was removed five years later, a real estate agent bought it for $3000 and used it to promote his business, for more about the tyre have a look here.


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