Who Owns Mickey Thompson?

Marion Lee "Mickey" Thompson was one of American motorsport's most versatile figures: a drag racer, speed record holder, race promoter, and tire innovator. In 1963 he founded Mickey Thompson Performance Tires in Southern California to build specialty racing tires that major manufacturers ignored, including the first low-profile racing slicks and wide tires for drag applications.

Thompson's innovations were practical answers to real racing problems. His tires powered land speed record attempts, drag cars, and short-course off-road trucks. In 1973 he founded SCORE International, the sanctioning body behind the Baja 1000, cementing the brand's connection to desert off-road racing that persists today.

Mickey Thompson and his wife Trudy were murdered in 1988, a crime later tied to a former business associate. The company changed hands afterward, eventually coming under Cooper Tire & Rubber Company's ownership in 2003. Under Cooper, the brand kept its enthusiast focus, centered on the Baja-named mud terrain and all-terrain lines and its ET Street and ET Drag racing families.

Product milestones under Cooper included the Baja MTZ and Baja ATZ lines, the Deegan 38 collaboration with motocross athlete Brian Deegan, and the 2019 Baja Boss M/T, which became the brand's flagship mud terrain. A street-focused line, the Street Comp, extended the brand to muscle cars and trucks that never see dirt.

Goodyear's acquisition of Cooper closed in June 2021, moving Mickey Thompson into the industry's largest US portfolio. Integration moved quickly: by December 2021, Mickey Thompson ET Front drag tires were being built at Goodyear's Akron Innovation Center Manufacturing facility. The brand has since expanded its racing presence, returning to SCORE off-road competition in 2024 and 2025 and developing the Baja Boss X and street-legal Baja Boss XS through its Ultra4 and desert racing programs, including Jeremy Jones's 2023 King of the Hammers Every Man Challenge win.