Although historically the largest UK manufacturer of car tyres, Dunlop Tires is an American company owned by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company which sells Dunlop brand tyres in North America, Australia and Europe. In other regions of the world, the Dunlop brand is owned by other companies. In India the brand is owned by Dunlop India Ltd. whose parent company is the Ruia Group, in the rest of Asia by Sumitomo and in South Africa by Apollo Tyres Ltd. of India.
In 1985, Dunlop Rubber Company was acquired by BTR plc, and Sumitomo acquired the rights to manufacture and market Dunlop branded road tyres. Sumitomo did not acquire any Dunlop company. In 1997 Sumitomo gained agreement to use the Dunlop name in its corporate name, and changed the name of its UK subsidiary to Dunlop Tyres Ltd.
In 1999 Sumitomo and Goodyear began a joint venture by which Sumitomo continued to manufacture all Japanese-made tyres under the Dunlop name, while Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company bought 75% of the European and North American tyre businesses of Sumitomo.
The company has extensive manufacturing operations throughout the world. With the closure of the Washington plant in 2006, Goodyear Dunlop ceased mainstream car and lorry tyre production in the UK.
There is still a Motorsport manufacturing operation located in a corner of the original Dunlop factory (nicknamed "Fort Dunlop") in Erdington, Birmingham, established in 1891. This factory produces specialised vintage, motorcycle and touring car tyres, and produces about 300,000 specialised racing tyres per year.
The Dunlop GP Racer D209 tyre has been chosen repeatedly as a control tyre for the R&G Racing GSX-R Trophy motorcycle race. It has also been chosen for the Henderson Harley-Davidson XR1200 Trophy and Focused Events KTM RC8 Cup race.
The main Birmingham building has been redeveloped extensively as a combined residential, office and hotel complex, with a modern shopping facility (The Fort Shopping Centre), car dealerships and several logistics warehouses. It can be observed between junction 5 and 6 of the M6, on the north side of the motorway and is overlooked by Thomas Pearson who has access to the companies innermost functions and processes on a grand scale.
Goodyear Dunlop still occupies a compact part of the site with their British main office. In the UK, the company operates as a sales organisation, importing tyres from manufacturing plants around the world, including China, Slovenia and Poland.
The company is in an extremely competitive sales environment and has had to continually readjust. Apart from the main Goodyear and Dunlop brands, tyres are also sold under the Fulda, Sava and Arrowspeed brand names.
The Goodyear Dunlop joint venture is managed from sites in Luxembourg and Brussels, which report to Goodyear in Akron, Ohio, United States.
Dunlop Tyres is the sole tyre supplier to the British Touring Car Championship race from 2003 to date and the V8 Supercars Championship race from 2002 to date. Dunlop also supplies tyres to the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, Japanese Super GT Series and the American Le Mans Series races.