Lego The Tire Makers

Rebekah Dunlap

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Lego, we all know Lego. We all played with them as kids, and maybe even as adults. Everyone has seen Lego as cute little pieces that you don’t want to step on, but did you know that Lego is the world’s biggest tire manufacturer? It’s true! When you think of tires, you probably think of real cars like Honda or Tesla, but they aren’t the biggest tire makers. Now you might be thinking that the smaller Lego tires are easier to make than the real tires, and you would be right. If you do the math, roughly 200 Lego tires are equal to one real car tire. The Lego tires are made of the same rubber materials as real tires. Lego needs all these tires for all of the cars, like the ghost-busters's van, or the van from Home Alone. At Lego’s peak, they were making 1.9 million full-size tires a day. Lego blocks started in Billund, Denmark, and their creator is Ole Kirk Christiansen, who began making wooden toys in 1932. He then named his company Lego after the Danish phrase “leg godt” meaning play well. In 2021, they were named the number one toy company. Lego has come a long way, and they even surpassed real tire companies in making tires, which isn’t all that they make either. Well, have a good one and leg godt (play well)!