Michelin Pilot Super Sport launches

Ferrari 458 Italia - just one of the Michelin Pilot Super Sport shod Supercars at the launch

Michelin has launched the Pilot Super Sport Tyre in Dubai with a supercar-fest of Michelin shod cars. The Pilot Super Sport goes on sale in January 2011.

At the beginning of October – when it was already starting to feel as if we were in mid-winter on some days – the nice man from Michelin (that’s Paul, not the Michelin Man) called and asked us if we’d like to go and play with their new tyre – the Michelin Pilot Super Sport – on some appealing cars.

Sadly, too few staff and too much to do meant we had to decline his kind offer. Although it was very hard to do when we realised it would have meant a few days in the sun in Dubai and the chance to drive some of the world’s finest cars, shod with Michelin’s replacement for the Pilot Sport PS2.

Still, it would be churlish not to report on what Michelin are calling “…the world’s fastest series produced tyre on the racetrack” just because we couldn’t find the time to go and play in Dubai. Perhaps we should invest in more staff instead of dragging eighteen hour days out of those poor souls unfortunate enough to inhabit Cars UK Towers?

Enough of the slave conditions at Cars UK, what about the Michelin Pilot Super Sport? Michelin say it incorporates all they’ve learned from events like Le Mans, has been developed in conjunction with Ferrari, Porsche and BMW M division and offers the ultimate driving experience while ensuring maximum safety even in extreme conditions. All sounds very able.

The techy bit is probably best server by a direct quote from the Michelin Pilot Super Sport blurb:

Michelin has uniquely combined three technologies, including two developed for tires used at the 24 Hours of Le Mans: the Twaron® fiber belt as well as the Bi-Compound tread band and the Variable Contact Patch 2.0, both of which were derived from innovations validated and used in endurance racing. The combination has produced compelling results that are apt to win over the most demanding manufacturers of cars in the ultra high-performance segment. As a result, the new Michelin tire has key advantages that enable it to rise to the challenge posed by its predecessor, the MICHELIN Pilot Sport PS2, which was certified as original equipment on more than 200 vehicles.

All we know is it looks a cracking tyre (regular readers know we have a bit of a tyre fetish) and is being fitted to some of the greatest road cars in the world. It’s also given us the excuse to put up a gallery of Supercars from the Dubai launch sporting Michelin’s new super-tyre.

Are we gutted we didn’t have time to go? What do you think?