Michelin Bibendum - Advertising sign - Resin

Michelin Tiny Man, advertising object
Resin sculpture of Michelin
new with packaging

Tracked shipment
careful packaging
with foam protection

Michelin man in resin, large size compared to gadgets that used to be given away with tire purchases
This was included in workshops as a form of advertising

Historical notes:

During participation in the Universal and Colonial Exposition of Lyon in 1894, Édouard and André Michelin noticed a pile of tires which suggested to Édouard the figure of a man without arms. Four years later, in 1898, André met the French cartoonsist 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 of Horace Nunc est bibendum ("Now is the time to drink"). André suggested replacing the man with a figure made of tires, similar to the pile seen years before; O'Galop thus transformed the original image into what would become the Michelin symbol.

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

Bibendum in 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 "name 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 1970s and 1980s, Bibendum was shown running and in 1998, on its centenary, a reduced version became the new logo of the company. He had given up the cigar and the pince-nez many years earlier. The slimming of the logo reflected the smaller, low-profile tires of modern cars and gave the character a friendlier, more approachable appearance.

#salvagecollection