Hankook Tire to fit Porsche 911 Carrera with original equipment tires

Hankook Tire & Technology's "Ventus S1 evo Z" tire / Courtesy of Hankook Tire & Technology

Hankook Tire & Technology will supply the ultrahigh-performance "Ventus S1 evo Z" tire as original equipment for Porsche's 911 Carrera, marking an expansion of its long-running supply partnership with the German sports car maker, the Korean tire company said.

The tires will come in two sizes tailored to the 911 Carrera's distinct front and rear specifications: 235/40 ZR19 for the front and 295/35 ZR20 for the rear. Because the 911 Carrera has a rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, Hankook Tire said the tires needed to deliver a careful balance of dry and wet performance along with precise steering response, strong grip and stability at high speed.

The tire maker said it built the product on roughly a decade of original-equipment cooperation with Porsche, following years of development and testing. The result met the automaker's technical requirements closely enough to earn Porsche's official "NA2" certification marking, which denotes a tire developed specifically for a given model.

The front and rear tires use separate tread designs, profiles and rubber compounds suited to their different roles, Hankook Tire said. The company said it also applied specialized resin and a high-silica content through a new mixing process to maintain stable performance in both dry and wet conditions, including strong grip and braking on water-covered roads.

Unlike a typical development project, which is usually validated at a single test facility, the company said the tire underwent testing at multiple high-performance tracks across Europe. Lane-change and handling performance were tested at Papenburg, Germany, and at IDIADA in Tarragona, Spain; high-speed dry handling was tested at Nardo, Italy; and wet handling was optimized at Pferdsfeld, Germany, alongside joint technical work with Porsche.

Hankook Tire currently supplies original-equipment tires to about 40 automakers and roughly 300 vehicle models worldwide. The company said it plans to continue strengthening its technological leadership in the original equipment tire segment through its headquarters complex, Technoplex, its research facility, Hankook Technodome, and its tire test track, Hankook Technoring.

Hankook Tire & Technology, a unit of Hankook & Company Group, was Korea's first dedicated tire manufacturer and remains the country's top-selling tire company by volume. It operates four regional headquarters, about 30 overseas offices, eight manufacturing plants and five research and development centers, selling tires in more than 160 countries, with over 85 percent of its revenue coming from overseas markets.

This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.