Once upon a factory
The protagonist of this story could be a German engineer named Adolf Fröhlich or possibly his Finnish counterpart Ossi Vahtera.
Before car tire production, the Nokia factory produced bicycle tires. Fröhlich was an account representative from Germany who was working with some new bicycle tire presses in Nokia in the early 1930’s. As the town didn’t have a hotel at the time, Fröhlich stayed at the home of office manager Ossi Vahtera.
The story goes that during one of his visits, the well-travelled German said to Vahtera: “Any factory can produce bicycle tires. Only the best factories can produce car tires.” Taking offence, Vahtera set out to prove that a Finnish manufacturing company could do anything the factories in Europe did – and beyond. And the rest is history.