We didn’t stop. We didn’t need to.
The Uniroyal Giant Tire announced itself long before we could decide. Towering over the shoulder of I-94 like some industrial Stonehenge, it caught us mid-conversation and held us in its gravitational pull for the length of an exit ramp. There it was: an 80-foot tall tire just sitting there, as if it had rolled off a god-sized Buick and decided to retire near Detroit.
No signs pointed to it. No museum. No welcome center. Just a tire in a field, lording over traffic.
We passed it in silence at first. Then came the inevitable:
“Was that a tire?”
“I think so.”
“It’s huge.”
“Why is it there?”
That last question lingered longer than it should have. Not because we didn’t know the answer—I’d read about it once, years ago. Built for the 1964 World’s Fair, once a Ferris wheel, now a roadside relic. Moved here in pieces and reassembled like some rubbery obelisk to mid-century ambition. But the why behind it still gnawed. Why a tire? Why keep it? Why here?
Maybe because Detroit understands the weight of wheels. This is, after all, the Motor City. The place where rubber met road, where assembly lines turned ambition into acceleration. The Uniroyal Tire isn’t just marketing—it’s myth. A monument not to war heroes or presidents, but to transportation. To motion itself.
But seeing it from the road—just seeing it—is enough. That’s what makes it work. It doesn’t ask you to engage or learn or pay admission. It just appears, massive and inexplicable, like a roadside koan. You drive by, and your brain short-circuits for a moment. That’s not supposed to be there. But it is.
We didn’t stop. But for the rest of the drive, we talked about it. The tire. The World’s Fair. What other ridiculous things have been built just because someone could? The Uniroyal Giant Tire had done its job. Not just advertising. Wonder. Even now, decades past its prime, it makes people look twice. Makes them ask questions. Makes them feel small in a world built large.