Rasputin said:
Yeah, last Century!
Back in 1979 there was a real Tire Retreading business in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.

Then came the changeover from bias-ply tires to almost everyone using radial tires. That completely changed the economics and economies of scale of the entire tire industry, including retreading (which pretty much became a dinosaur for passenger tires). I too, also know something about the subject matter. I actually may know more about tires than you do. Going back to that era, how about the Firestone 500 vs. the 721?
What is the difference?

Whatever you wrote at that time is so completely out of date I'm surprised you even mention it. It would be like a landline telephone thesis before the advent of cell phones!
The world has changed since then.

And how the hell are you going to make old tires in St. Martin into shock absorbers? I didn't know that there was such a factory on the island. Or are we talking about shipping old used tires overseas? What is the inexpensive economics of that? This is not 1979.