Apollo creates tulip variant to celebrate Vredestein brand

AMSTERDAM—The Vredestein brand continues to bloom for Apollo Tyres Ltd.

The Gurgaon, India-based tire maker recently commissioned a new variant of the tulip—a flower closely associated with Netherlands, home of the Vredestein brand—to mark the 15th anniversary of Apollo's acquisition of Vredestein.

The venerable brand also recently celebrated its 115th anniversary,

The purple tulip, with distinctive purple petals, is named the Kanwar Tulip, in honor of the Kanwar family, who founded and owns Apollo Tyre. The purple is the hue of the Apollo Tyres logo.

A bouquet of Kanwar Tulips was given to Onkar Kanwar,the company's chairman, and Neeraj Kanwar, the vice chairman and managing director, during the executives visit to Amsterdam.

Jan Lighart bred the batch of tulips at Den Helder, north of Amsterdam.

Vredestein was founded in 1908 to design and manufacture bicycle tires in Loosduinen, the Netherlands. The company began building tires for cars in 1912.

In 1952, Vredestein opened its Enschede factory in the Twente region in eastern Netherlands, where it continues to manufacture its range of summer, winter and all-season passenger car tires.

The facility produced the first Vredestein Quatrac tire in 1991, one of the industry's first products in the all-season segment.

Apollo acquired the brand in 2009, and it has continued to invest in its European R&D and European production capabilities to make "premium-quality teres that offer superior levels of performance, durability and safety at an attractive price point," according to Apollo.

Benoit Rivallant, president of Apollo Tyres Europe, said Apollo is honored to be a part of Vredestein's success story.

"Although very much still routed in its Dutch heritage, the brand is now recognized globally for its impressive variety of industry-leading tires for cars, trucks, agricultural machinery and bicycles," he said. "Iit has been instrumental to the development of Apollo Tyres in Europe."

In 2014, Apollo launched the Vredestein Wintrac Xtreme S, expanding the brand's winter portfolio. Apollo also invested in the Enschede manufacturing plant that same year to increase capacity and meet demand in Europe.

In 2015, Apollo expanded its agricultural line by launching the Traxion Harvest, and with new variants of the Traxion Versa and Endurion.

Apollo re-entered the North America market in 2021 with a comprehensive launch of Vredestein passenger and light truck tires designed exclusively for North America.

In June 2023, Apollo signed an exclusive agreement with Canadian Tire Corp., making Vredestein-brand tires available at each of the 500-plus Canadian Tires stores across Canada.