LAS VEGAS — Sailun Tire Americas (STA) believes the aggressive new Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T will take a bite out of the growing all-terrain light truck, CUV and SUV market.
The Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T was 16 months in the making, and STA executives said they wanted the tire to benchmark or surpass performance of top competitor-brand rugged-terrain tires. And, then the company tried to keep it as quiet as possible for an off-road tire.
"It also had to be 3PMS (3-peak mountain snowflake) for both our Canadian and northern states dealers," Sailun's Jamie McIntyre said. "We wanted to have a good warranty, and we want to have a good size range — and have it look the part that fits the Blackhawk brand."
@tire.business Read about the new tire at tirebusiness.com.
♬ LIMITS THE SKY - Mpax
Sailun hosted media and dealers in Las Vegas in mid-August to test out the new product.
The Ridgecrawler R/T was engineered for durability and performance across a variety of landscapes. The R/T features an optimized wide footprint tread design for traction and control on any surface.
It carries the 3PMS symbol indicating it is benchmarked for snow traction, and a majority of sizes come pinned for studs.
The tire also features aggressive-looking sidewall "biters" for added traction and protection in extreme environments, like when rock crawling with lowered tire pressure.
The line includes 40 sizes covering 16- to 22-inch rim diameters. Speed ratings include S, T and Q.
The tire comes with a 60-month or 45,000-mile limited treadwear warranty, as well as roadside assistance.
McIntyre said STA's aim is offer value-tier pricing with top-tier quality.
"We feel like we've hit the right home run with it, and just need to get it out there more and see what the market says," McIntyre said. "And we're willing to add sizes if there's a demand from the market."
In the U.S., the Blackhawk brand is sold exclusively to Tire Alliance Groupe (TAG) members, whose reach is more than 5,000 retail locations.
In Canada, OK Tire and its network of more than 325 locations have exclusive rights to sell the Blackhawk line.
The new Ridgecrawler R/T will be built at the company's state-of-the-art facility in Cambodia that opened in 2021.
All products for North America will be built in either Vietnam, Cambodia or Mexico, where the company broke ground there earlier this year. Production is expected to start in early 2026.
McIntyre said Sailun prides itself on quality control, and the company's plants are largely automated to maintain uniformity.
"Even mixing is fully automated … and a lot of single-stage building machines," he said. "You're talking about single-stage building machines that can throw off a green PLT tire every 30 to 35 seconds."
Then products go through extensive field testing, he said.
"We're benchmarking against the No. 1 tires in the market," he said, "and our goal is always to beat 100% of those tires or, at worst, we're 95% from a quality standpoint," he said.
"We never want to leave our tier, so just because we're making what we consider great tires, we're not looking to move up into tier two, into tier one in terms of a price point," he said. "We want to stay where we are.
"We're really a solution provider for you guys, the tire dealers."
STA goes to market under the brand names Sailun, ERange, Blackhawk, Rovelo, RoadX and Ironhead. STA is the Americas business unit of Dongying City, China-based Sailun Group Co. Ltd., which Tire Business ranks as the 10th largest tire maker in the world with 2023 tire sales of $3.6 billion.
@tire.business Read our story on Sailun Tire's Blackhawk Ridgecrawler R/T at tirebusiness.com.
♬ original sound - Tire Business
Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Tire Business would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor Don Detore at [email protected].