Michelin Bibendum - Advertising sign - Resin

Michelin Gnome, advertising item
Resin sculpture of Michelin
new with packaging

Tracked shipping
careful packaging
with foam protection

Michelin gnome in resin, large size compared to gadgets that were given away with tire purchases
This was included in service shops as a form of advertising

Historical notes:

During participation in the Universal and Colonial Exhibition in Lyon in 1894, Édouard and André Michelin noticed a stack of tires that suggested to Édouard the figure of a man with no arms. Four years later, in 1898, André met the French cartoonist Marius Rossillon, popularly known as O’Galop, who showed him an image he had created for a Munich brewery that had been rejected. It depicted a large human figure holding a beer glass and the phrase Orazio Nunc est bibendum ("Now is the time to drink"). André suggested replacing the man with a figure made of tires, similar to the stack seen years before; O’Galop thus transformed the original image into what would become the Michelin symbol.

The first manifesto of 1898 depicted him toasting his poor competitors with the phrase Nunc est bibendum, holding a glass full of dangerous nails and broken glass, while uttering the line "C’est à dire: À votre santé. Le pneu Michelin boit l’obstacle" ("That is to say: to your health. The Michelin tire drinks the obstacle"). [1] The implication was that Michelin tires would easily overcome road hazards, unlike other tires.

Bibendum in the modern version, displayed at a fair in Taipei in 2008.
The company used this type of poster as a basis for many years, adding its latest products to the table in front of the figure. It is not clear when the word "Bibendum" became the name of the character itself. In 1908 Michelin commissioned Curnonsky to draft a newspaper column signed "Bibendum". In the 1920s, "Bibendum" was also the title of a periodical published by the company's Italian subsidiary.[2]

In 1922, Michelin organized a contest to "nominate the Michelin Tyre Man" in the United States. [3]

The shape of Bibendum changed over the years, updating after World War II to align with new advertising needs. O’Galop’s logo was based on bicycle tires, wore pince-nez glasses with a cord and smoked a cigar. In the 70s and 80s, Bibendum was shown running, and in 1998, on its centennial, a reduced version became the new company logo. He had abandoned the cigar and pince-nez many years earlier. The logo’s slimming reflected the smaller, lower-profile tires of modern cars and gave the character a friendlier, more approachable air.

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