Continental rouge ferré. Un pneu bien ferré en vaut deux. - an original poster, 1910, advertising the early motoring trade.

Motoring in the first decades of the century was an argument with the road surface, and the trade advertised on that basis: grip, durability, and the ability to keep going where the road gave out. The posters promise endurance rather than speed, and they do it with the comic exaggeration the period expected of commercial art.

Continental, founded in Hanover in 1871, was among the first firms in Europe to make pneumatic tyres for motor cars and competed hard in the French market before and after the First World War. Its posters lean on durability and grip - the studded "ferré" tread this one names was an early answer to bad roads.

Restored from a high-resolution scan of an original lithograph, with the scanning marks and mount board removed so that only the poster itself is printed. Printed to order on cotton-fibre archival paper, with optional mounting and hand-finished framing in our own workshop.