t's fair to start talking about automobile wheels starting with Karl Benz's 1885 Benz Patent Motorwagen. The three-wheel vehicle used bicycle-like wire wheels, which were fitted with hard rubber. Speaking of rubber, the first people who thought about using it for automobile purposes were André and Edouard Michelin, who later founded the famous tire company. In 1910, the B.F. Goodrich Company invented longer life tires by adding carbon to the rubber.