Michelin buys winter tire testing property in Finland

IVALO, Finland—Michelin has acquired the property where its “Fox Farm” winter tire testing center is located.

The company said the move will reinforce its testing and approval operations for winter tires for passenger cars, vans and trucks.

Michelin has been operating the site near Ivalo—a village of about 4,000 inhabitants 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle—for more than 20 years for testing and approval of its winter tires, the company said.

Michelin did not disclose financial terms of the deal.

The site covers nearly 150 acres, about one-third of it devoted to tracks, including two ice tracks, four circular tracks, a 1-mile snow test track and various platforms for braking and acceleration testing, according to Michelin data, along with various technical structures for tire storage, vehicle maintenance, etc.

The extreme climatic conditions at Ivalo and the quality of the snow, which has a different consistency to Alpine snow, offer a good test environment, Michelin said.

The company said it has conducted nearly 170,000 miles of testing at the site since 1988, or an average of about 6,200 miles a year. In 2014, Michelin tested 2,000 different tires there, including 400 truck tires.

Ivalo is also home to the winter test facilities of Nokian Tyres P.L.C. and Goodyear, along with the independent Test World Oy, which recently was taken over by Millbrook Proving Ground Ltd., a Millbrook, England-based independent technology center for the design, engineering, test and development of automotive and propulsion systems.