aka Tom Reingold
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: New York, NY, and High Falls, NY, USA
Posts: 40,498
Bikes: 1962 Rudge Sports, 1971 Raleigh Super Course, 1971 Raleigh Pro Track, 1974 Raleigh International, 1975 Viscount Fixie, 1982 McLean, 1996 Lemond (Ti), 2002 Burley Zydeco tandem
Mentioned: 511 Post(s)
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Quoted: 7346 Post(s)
According to one web page I found, Trim Line tires were made by Mitsuboshi. There were three tire makers in Japan in the 70s and 80s, Panaracer (really Panasonic or National), Mitsuboshi, and IRC. Only Panaracer survived. Tires are somewhat labor intensive, so the other companies lost to cheaper labor markets. They were all extremely good. We had Mitsuboshi tires here under the name of Specialized. They were light, reliable, had a good ride, and they had an extremely low defect rate. I can't remember a single defective Mitsuboshi tire, and I've had defects in most other brands, as I have a large sample size of many of them.