Continental debuts new SportContact 6 (SC6) tyre

By JAY WONG | 3 September 2015


HANOVER (Germany): Continental, the German tyre-maker, has officially debuted its latest SportContact 6 (SC6) tyre for the high performance segment.

The new SC6 is available in 41 dimensions for wheel sizes of 19 to 23 inches and it gets an improvement of 14% in steering precision, 11% for dry road handling, 7% for durability and comfort, 4% for overall grip and 2% for wet-grip over its predecessor - the ContiSportContact 5 P.

Continental SportContact 6 - 02
The 350kph-approved tyre possesses a new high-grip "Black Chili" compound that has high levels of adhesion and is soft enough to mould itself to the uneven road surfaces at the nanoscopic-level.

With a new-found adhesion level, the SC6 aids in improving a car's handling characteristics during braking, cornering and acceleration during both wet and dry conditions by combining the use of three different tread designs on the inside, outside and centre of the tyre.

When cornering, the outside of the tyre is subjected to greater forces than the inside and the rib flanks have been designed to be asymmetrical, which improves the rib's stability and allows for better transfer of lateral forces.

Continental SportContact 6 - 06
The tyre designers at Continental combined different block elements to form one larger unit, which are then connected to the interlaced elements on the second row of blocks.

This allows the tread blocks to support each other during fast cornering and offer optimum lateral force transfer.

Aside from the new compound and tread design, the company also created a new synthetic material - Aralon 350 (Nylon combined with Aramid), and is placed under the tread as a jointless cap ply to act as an additional reinforcement for the tyre during high speeds. .

Continental SportContact 6 - 13
This acts like an additional steel belt to prevent the tyre from deforming - subsequently destroying itself, during high speeds of up to 350kph and aids in improving the tyre's braking, handling and directional stability performances.

The new SC6 is currently fitted as standard on the Audi R8, Porsche 911, BMW M5, Mercedes AMG models and the Tesla S to name a few as well as the yet-to-be-launched Honda Civic Type-R.

Malaysia will begin selling the new tyre at the start of 2016.




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