Human Flower Project

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Driven Amok on Lavender Tires

A European company wants drivers to spritz the skies.

A Kumho’s Ecsta tire smells like lavender for a year

Photo:  Ask Patty

The air may be poisonous but laying a patch in the parking lot never smelled better.

Delticom, “Europe’s leading online tyre dealer” is selling tires scented with lavender. “The Ultra High Performance (UHP) tires from Kumho’s Ecsta line disperses its fragrance at warm atmospheric conditions to a radius of around 10 metres,” we learn.  “The secret of the fragrant tires is heat resistant oils, which give off a pleasant aroma.”

So much for the free-market pep clubbers who keep claiming that invisible hands on a hard body will solve our environmental disaster. Fellas, the free market doesn’t curb air pollution. It develops lavender tires and sells them for $119, $125, or $138 apiece! (By the way, who’s purchasing tires online? And what must shipping and handling fees amount to on a rubber potpourri?)

Close-up of Kumho Ecsta tread

scented with lavender oil

Photo: via Tire Rack (dye job by HFP)

Kumho says its target buyers are “female consumers who drive such sedans as the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Subaru Outback, Chrysler Sebring and Ford Taurus.”  What’s the reasoning? Perhaps that all those Glade and Miss Clairol loyalists have found it’s easier to cover up than change or just cope with reality. (Obliviousness, the tire dealers will be happy to discover, is also very manly.)

In case you didn’t already know, half of all air pollution comes from cars and trucks. Yes, it’s even barfed out by those nice Tauruses and Camrys (like ours). And folks’ dropping a thousand dollars on four tires “that will set their luxury coupes and sedans apart from everyone else’s…in addition to delivering an alluring aroma that replaces a tire’s normal ‘rubber’ smell”  won’t help matters. Here are some measures that will.

Kumho’s lavender scented tires came on the U.S. market this year, and the company says it plans to roll out orange and jasmine models in the future.

Sunset over Fort Worth

on an ozone alert day

Photo: Milton Adams, for Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

We don’t know how the scented tires are selling. We do know, however, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may raise its standards on air quality as early as Monday of next week. The American Lung Association and other organizations have threatened to sue EPA, saying that the agency’s existing regulations don’t protect the public health. Here in Texas, urban air pollution is notoriously bad. In 2006, Tarrant and Dallas counties had, respectively, the 9th and 16th worst air quality in the nation. Last year the Dallas-Ft. Worth area exceeded EPA’s existing clean air standards for 31 days (that a month of hazardous breathing).

For the doubters, here are some Miss Clairol visuals. Check out those lavender skies!