Great ideas are often the result of chance. Bibendum, arguably the world's best-known advertising personality, is no exception. His peculiar silhouette, his particular sense of humor, and even his unusual name, everything about him is exceptional and arises from a series of coincidences in which men as different as an engineer, a publicist, a poster artist, a classical poet have taken part. and a car driver.
In February 1893, André Michelin defends the advantages of the tire in a conference at the College of Civil Engineers in Paris and launches a phrase that would become Michelin's motto: "The tire swallows obstacles". A historical phrase that will bear fruit. A year later, at the Universal and Colonial Exhibition in Lyon, the two Michelin brothers observe in their pavilion a stack of tires of different sizes that have a suggestive silhouette. They say that Édouard then commented to André: «If I had arms I would look like a man«.
A short time later, André Michelin will remember this phrase. In 1897 the illustrator Marius Rossillon - who signs with the pseudonym O'Galop! - presents several advertising projects to the Michelin brothers. Among them is a sketch made for a brewery that shows a Bavarian raising his glass under the motto "Nunc est bibendum" (And now let's drink) taking up a verse by Horace. To André's fertile imagination, his quote immediately reminds him of his phrase «The tire swallows obstacles«. He immediately makes an association of ideas between the great Bavarian in the sketch and the image of the pile of tires in Lyon and commissions a poster from O'Galop. In 1898 O'Galop designed, following the instructions of André Michelin, a poster in which an imposing character made of tires is seen at a banquet raising his glass full of nails and glass fragments and toasting: «Nunc est bibendum » (equivalent to «Cheers! The tire swallows obstacles«).
Like the few car owners of the time, "The Michelin Man", proudly displays the obvious signs of a certain prosperity: ring, cigar and corpulence! The glasses, on the other hand, are borrowed from André Michelin. But the real baptism of Bibendum takes place a few months later during the Paris-Amsterdam-Paris race. The pilot Théry, recognizing André Michelin exclaims: «Look, Bibendum!«. The nickname will quickly pass from father to son and from that moment the name "Bibendum" and the Michelin doll will remain united forever.
