World’s Largest Tire

I remember back in the 90’s when I was a kid. We would ride our bikes through the woods to get the tire. We had to pull up the fence and slide under it, and try to go in. Lol the door was locked of course.
I remember before the remodel, there was a arrow stuck in the top of it. Lol, it was there for years.
If you look close in the woods before the tire, there is a jeep upside down on the trail. It has been there as long as I can remember. You can see it if your going easy on I-​94, a hundred feet before the tire. You can see it best in fall and winter. No leaves to block the views.
Lol, I wish I was that hoodlum kid again, with my only worry being someone doesn’t steal my Haro.
Lol

I love this tire for one reason only, it is part of all my great memories of traveling… right before we went to the airport, we always passed this, so it links me to the good old days. Talk about nostalgia!
I had no idea that it was the largest tire, nor did I know it was considered historic. I just always knew we are really close to the airport as soon as we passed the giant tire.

This would be a much cooler landmark if you could get close to it. Climb it. Conquer it. It is basically just a giant tire. If it were a Ferris wheel, like Mike G. says it was, now man would that be rocking awesome! Can you imagine?
As it stands it is merely a giant tire. Symbolic of Detroit’s auto titan past but somehow just a stagnant piece of history. It has no real life.
I want to touch it, make something useful or fun out of it. Find a way to make it citizen friendly. It is a tease, a possibility but it is not truly alive. This just could be just so much cooler!
Sorry but it is just no brick dick in my book. Ypsilanti wins in the landmark challenge hands down. Sorry Allen Park!

Oh to be young again. Not just for fixing all of my mistakes, and chasing women again, but to relive those fond memories I have from childhood. One of those memories, The World’s Largest Tire.
I remember whenever I my family would travel to the airport, passing this tire of gargantuan proportions. The tire would seem to reach the heavens, and my imagination would run wild. Who built this tire? Whose vehicle would accommodate such rubber? Who moved it into this place? I pictured Paul Bunyan type men and women, hiding in the woods and living lives not much different from our own. And of course, they needed tires for those huge cars.
Yes, the imagination of a young man is hard to beat. Now that I’ve driven past this tire as an adult, it doesn’t seem quite as large, nor as amazing. But, it’s hard to ignore the wonder of The World’s Largest Tire and the memories that come along with it.

It can be seen from I-​94 from two cities away, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a ferris wheel?
Yes that’s right, before becoming a giant tire, the Uniroyal sponsored behemoth was actually a ride at the world’s fair.
It’s the world’s largest tire, and at one point in time it had a giant nail in it to advertise for run-​flat tires. Whatever the reason, this tire has become synonymous with Allen Park and for many heading to or from Metro airport it signifies coming home.

The monument to the motor city is appropriately inaccessible by foot and only viewable through the 70−90mph drive-​by of your car window. But just in case you dare to access it some other way, it’s also fenced off. I always wanna touch it! Is it squishy or plastic-​y? Does it smell like an auto shop?
I’ve got a love-​hate relationship with it as it always is a visible marker of distance and time for my drives between Ann Arbor and Detroit. Sometimes it appears faster than I anticipate and so I feel excited. Other times, it shows up as a reminder of how slow traffic is moving. The best is seeing the tire in the purple reign of midnight returning home after adventurous shenanigans.
Literary Anecdote: It’s written about in Middlesex, a very good book I might add, so it’s nice to have an artifact to stare at that blurs the boundary between reality and fiction. Sometimes I ponder what it’s like to have a monument to the industry that essentially betrayed a city.

I have such a strong feeling of nostalgia with this tire. It was a symbol of Detroit and the Motor City in so many ways, and as a child it meant that my family was almost home. It was the halfway point between our apartment in Detroit and the airport.
I don’t pass it as often anymore, but when I do, it always makes me so happy.
Best tire ever.

How can you not like «The World’s Largest Tire»? It costs nothing to see when you are driving on I-​94 and God knows you cannot miss it!
Originally constructed as a, get this, Ferris Wheel for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It held up to 96 riders. Approximately 2 million people rode the ride. Did you know that Jacqueline Kennedy and her children, John Jr., and Caroline rode it too?
After the fair ended, it was moved to Allen Park, where Uniroyal’s Headquarters is located. There have been three updates /​renovations to the tire to keep it up to date looking. It even had a nail in it for a time although they finally patched that up!

The thing I like best about this, the World’s Largest Tire, is driving by with people who are new to town and saying «That’s the World’s Largest Tire!» Then they inevitably murmur something like «wow» or «oh cool.»
So, it’s not the most exciting landmark, I mean it’s not the world’s largest corn dog or anything, but it still makes me happy to see. Although I really miss the nail that used to be in it. I found it added some additional whimsy.