EUFORI@: the new MIRS Tyre

Milan, 1st March 2001 - The new high performance tyre generation to be produced by Pirelli with its recently unveiled, revolutionary MIRS technology will be called EUFORI@. The name was chosen by Pirelli and more than 10,000 Internet surfers who recently visited the Group's web page, www.pirelli.com, and voted for one of the 10 finalist names in the "Name the new e-TIRE products" on-line competition.

The name EUFORI@ was proposed by Luigi Ronchin, of Mogliano Veneto, Treviso, Italy. He is the winner of a new Mini Cooper 1.6 and guest of honour at Pirelli's MIRS factory at Bicocca, Milan, for the official prize-giving ceremony. During the event, a member of the Pirelli Tyre Sector's top management will hand Mr. Ronchin the keys to his new car which will be, naturally, shod with tyres from the very first batch of EUFORI@. The remaining nine finalists will each receive a $3,000 prize and all 10 will be presented with a copy of the prestigious 2001 Pirelli Calendar.

With EUFORI@, Mr. Ronchin has successfully captured the feeling of enthusiasm and pleasure transmitted by high performance MIRS tyres to the driver. EUFORI@ is a positive, strong, brand-related name for the e-tyres, with which Pirelli intends to generate a quality revolution in the low-profile field.

Pirelli launched the competition in October on its www.pirelli.com web site, as a result of which more than 21,000 new tyre names were entered. This success comes from marketing and language advisers' new initiatives, in which they entrusted the Internet with the new product naming process.

The new Pirelli e-tyres are born of a revolutionary new technological process called MIRS (Modular Integrated Robotised System), an on-line mini-factory which is completely robotised and flexible. The tyres made with MIRS technology have totally new characteristics in performance, reliability and comfort, with a quality level greater than that of the already high standards of traditional manufacturing methods. EUFORI@ are the new millennium tyres, and are already being tested by a number of car manufacturers, from whom homologations are soon expected.