Who wants to build a LEGO set?

I'm confident I can do it if it's 20 pieces or less.

Howdy! It’s Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. Get out your Rubbermaid bins because we’re about to make something magical.

Photo by Tolga Ulkan on Unsplash

LEGO is the largest tire manufacturer in the world.

There are quite a few tire manufacturers out there. Perhaps you’re familiar with Goodyear, Michelin Group, or Continental.

Or maybe you don’t know any tire brands and simply wonder, “Why do we need to rotate tires? Aren’t they rotating all the time while we’re driving?”

In any case, no matter how many manufacturers you can rattle off, none of them make more tires annually than LEGO Group.

Since 2006, the Danish toymaker has produced an average of 306 million tires every year. In 2010, LEGO set a Guinness World Record record by producing 381 million tires.

For comparison, Bridgestone and Michelin are both in the neighborhood of 184 million to 200 million each year.

Of course, if you tried to fix a flat tire with something you found in a LEGO set, you’d have a very quick and disappointing drive.

Jalopnik did some extra math and determined that a standard care tire is 45% rubber and weighs about 20 pounds, so nine of those pounds are rubber. A LEGO car tire is 100% rubber, but its poundage is way less: 0.0441 pounds (approximately 20 grams).

So, if LEGO were to convert all that rubber into human-sized vehicle tires, it would put out about 1.9 million of them per year.

I feel like most of my LEGO experiences are just me putting random pieces together and hoping for the best—personally, I had more fun with K’NEX growing up. But that feels like a nice launchpad for another poll…and if your answer is yes, I want to hear what you built in the comments. Thanks for reading!