When you look at a tire, the tread pattern seems like a given... but that wasn’t always the case. Over a century ago, tires were just smooth rubber. That changed in the early 1900s when Continental unveiled the first-ever hand-carved tread pattern at the Frankfurt Auto Show, a move that transformed how tires deliver traction, braking, and steering.

To mark 120 years since that invention, we sat down with Barry Terzaken, Product Manager at Continental, to explore how tread design has evolved and where it’s headed next.

From Hand-Carved Grooves to Specialized Patterns

The first tread was simple: circumferential grooves cut into the tire to help it steer and grip on wet or muddy roads. Terzaken explained that Continental hand-carved early designs to experiment with performance, a practice they still use today alongside advanced simulation and AI modeling.

“[Adding tread] was really an astounding change. You have to go back a little bit farther because you're talking about the dawn of private mobility in vehicles at this time,” said Terzaken. “There were needs for traction, there was needs for braking and steering ability. And at the Frankfurt Auto Show, this is the first introduction of an actual hand carved tread pattern. This is where Continental came in.”

Modern Continental Tread Pattern Designs Built for Every Driver

Today, tread design is highly specialized. Ultra-high-performance summer tires feature asymmetric patterns for cornering grip. Winter and wet-weather tires use directional V-shaped grooves to channel water and snow. Every day, passenger tires often use symmetric patterns to allow easy rotation.

Terzaken highlighted how much engineering goes into every detail, even the small ones.

"If you look at a lot of our all-season tire grooves, they have little teeth called traction grooves," he explained. "With those little teeth inside that groove, now all of a sudden the groove is giving you traction in a condition where you really need traction, for example." 

120 Years, and Still Carving the Future

What started as a hand-carved experiment in 1904 is now a field driven by AI, simulation, and thousands of patents. But as Terzaken reminded us, it’s still about one thing: giving drivers the grip, control, and confidence they need on the road.

Check out the full episode to see how Continental is celebrating 120 years of tread pattern innovation and pushing the limits of tire design for the next century.

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