If we are being absolutely truthful with ourselves, New Zealand is a very small player in the world of 4WDs and off-road tyres. Yes, some vehicle manufacturers have come to New Zealand to do cold weather vehicle testing in the South Island, but to the best of our knowledge we have never heard of a tyre manufacturer testing prototype tyres in all round New Zealand conditions, on and off road; until now.
Enter Cooper Tires. US company Cooper Tires is the ninth largest tyre manufacturer in the world and is among the 350 largest companies in America so why would they consider New Zealand conditions for the testing of a new prototype off road tyre?
Probably because in recent years the company has built a unique and close relationship with Exclusive Tyre Distributors (ETD), the importers and distributors of Cooper’s tyres in Australia and more recently New Zealand.
Testing times
When the Cooper Discoverer STT (Super Traction Tread) was designed it was tested in the Australian outback and ETD had influence in the design and properties of the tyre. So when Cooper Tires set about producing a better tyre to the already popular and proven Discoverer STT they returned to Australia and ETD for the testing.
That testing was done in June/July of 2014 and three months later the tyre was also tested here in New Zealand with personnel from ETD in Australia and also a few key people from Cooper Tires’ dealer network in the South Island.
It was this test ‘window’ that NZ4WD was invited to observe.
Fascinating
It was an interesting and fascinating 1,200kms over three days as the tyres were tested from city to highway to back country roads to of- road and eventually back to Christchurch. Unfortunately whilst we can tell you about the testing programme and our thoughts of the tyre, understandably we are unable to show you the tyre until it is finally signed off and goes into production and released which is expected about mid-2015.
The test was full-on for three days and I have to say I am excited about the eventual launch of the new tyre. The tread pattern looks more aggressive, certainly seemed to perform very well off-road, handled extremely well on and off-road, yet was noticeably quieter on the road than the current Discoverer STT which in itself is a very good tyre and ranks very highly worldwide.
To read the full story in the March 2015 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (on sale March 23) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.
