Interpretation ID: nht69-1.5

DATE: 05/01/69 EST

FROM: AUTHOR UNAVAILABLE; Robert Brenner; NHTSA

TO: Concorde Rubber Company

TITLE: FMVSS INTERPRETATION

TEXT: This is in reply to your letter of April 2, 1969, requesting a Department of Transportation (DOT) code number be assigned the Concorde Rubber Company. According to your letter, Concorde has tires manufactured for it by (Illegible Word) Tire and Rubber Company of Hadera, Israel, and by Lee Tire and Rubber Company of Conehehocken, Pennsylvania, which are labeled with Concorde's brand name and the manufacturer's code number (alliance Tire and Rubber Company uses approved code number DOT 187 and Lee Tire and Rubber Company uses approved code number 152).

Pursuant to Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 109, DOT numbers to be molded onto new tires, where a brand name is used rather than the manufacturer's own name, are assigned to tire manufacturers so the seller of the tire may identify the manufacturer to a purchaser upon request.

The legislative history of section 201 of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 (15 U.S.C. 4121) e.g., see 112 Cong. Rec. 18792 (daily ed. August 17, 1966), and the plain meaning of section 201 of the Act demonstrates that Congress intended to have tires made for sale under the private brand of a merchandiser bear the name or code mark of the concern that actually produces the tire, not merely an identification of the merchandiser distributing and selling the tires to the public.

The Act provides that tire labeling shall include "suitable identification of the manufacturer . . . unless the tire contains a brand name other than the name of the manufacturer in which case it shall also contain a code mark which would permit the seller of such tire to identify the manufacturer thereof to the purchaser upon his request." Accordingly, your request for the Concorde Rubber Company's own code number, so that tires manufactured for Concorde by different tire producers can have the same code number, must be denied.