Edouard Michelin

"Reassured, on October 8, 1931, André Citroën went—with Pierre Bourdon, one of Edouard Michelin’s sons-in-law—to make a pilgrimage to the United States, to discover the new production lines and models being prepared in Detroit, despite the crisis. To “fill up on oxygen” as well. Speeches, toasts, Champagne, the most dynamic industrialist in France meets, discusses, gets photographed, proud as a schoolboy, with the French ambassador Paul Claudel, with President Hoover, with Henry Ford 1er."

"“The house was on its last breath. Edouard Michelin went to see an old aunt who had money and lived alone. He needed five hundred thousand francs. The aunt said she would give her answer the next day. When her nephew came the following day — feeling quite inadequate — she made the requested sum available to him. She had simply taken the time between the two visits to secure a room with the Little Sisters of the Poor in case the venture went badly.”"

"In 1897, the shareholders of the Clermont-Ferrand business—the Daubrée family, Adèle Michelin the mother of the two brothers, and her sister Émilie Mage—renewed their confidence in Edouard Michelin. He had their agreement to invest as much as necessary in the production of automobile tires. The capital was increased to one million six hundred thousand francs on March 28, 1897, divided into three thousand two hundred shares, and then to two million on November 2 the following year (and four thousand shares)."

"He is twenty-nine years old when, on May 28, 1955, Robert Puiseux calls him to management. The son-in-law of Edouard Michelin — “the invisible man of French industry” as the newspapers call him — is preparing to pass the baton, as the “Boss” had asked him to do. And it is to François Michelin, the grandson, that the responsibility of the House and that of the dynasty will go. He has the required qualities and, to the core, the house spirit. Robert Puiseux will mentor him for another four years before completely handing over to him in 1959 the power, with its challenges and responsibilities. Both at the head of the Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin, the holding company of the group created in 1951, and its main subsidiary, the Manufacture Française des Pneumatiques Michelin."

"Firstly, the style: “There is no possible success without authority in action. And there is no authority without the independence of the leader.” Because it is he who will have to be accountable. One must beware as of the seven deadly sins of anything that could hinder his freedom of maneuver. Those who hold power must be freed from all unnecessary constraints. Even at the risk of making mistakes. Edouard Michelin had inscribed at the entrance of the Factory: “The Factory doesn’t need leaders who never make mistakes.”"

"A flaw remains. Citroën has high-end models that sell well but nothing in the lower range anymore. By the end of October 1935, Pierre Boulanger requests the quick development of “a car capable of carrying two farmers in clogs, fifty kilos of potatoes or a barrel at a maximum speed of sixty kilometers per hour, with a consumption of three liters per hundred kilometers.” Starting all problems from scratch. And achieving an affordable solution: “No more than the price of a motorcycle,” requested Edouard Michelin. So, less than eight thousand francs, a third of the price of the “11 CV”. A pittance (the production cost will never be less than nine thousand five hundred francs). Boulanger limited himself to specifying that “aesthetics were of no importance.”"

"The years he has lived through since the end of the First World War have been the hardest of his life. His brother André—“I was the Champagne, he was the bubbles,” Edouard used to say—died on April 4, 1931, taking with him a fantastic sense of public relations and advertising, an intuition for staging “hits” to be at the forefront of the news that the brand would never find again."

"Edouard replies to his brother: “Riding on air is a wonderful thing. But the glued tire is a ‘mess.’ As long as it takes a day to patch a nail hole, the new tire cannot develop. What is needed is to make it easily removable, and that will change the future of the bicycle.” Edouard Michelin rolls up his sleeves and locks himself in a factory shed with Arnaud, his trusted man. To ensure a flat tire is no longer a disaster, the tire must be removable by mechanical means—no glue, no needle—and anyone should be able to do it in a quarter of an hour."

"Finally, and paradoxically, what strikes me in the history of Michelin is the opposition between the jealously guarded secrecy over the design and implementation of the product and an undeniable and sometimes revolutionary taste for information and public relations. The managers who refused entry to their workshops to General de Gaulle were also the heirs of Edouard Michelin and, like him, managed, year after year, from Salon to Salon, to always maintain public interest and often by making them smile."

"It will ultimately be Pierre Michelin, alone, who will make the decision after lengthy hesitation: by taking control of his main client, wouldn’t he risk alienating the other automobile manufacturers? The risk of a boycott is high. Pierre Michelin knows this. Nevertheless, he gives his approval. Edouard Michelin, to whom the case will be presented a few weeks later, will eventually give his endorsement."

"When in 1919, André and Edouard Michelin published a brochure on their efforts before and during the First World War to provide France with a bombing aviation, they denounced “a few men in power, of whom three were particularly harmful.”"