"They thought I was drunk when I drove nails in my tire."  From Popular Mechanics, 1927.

The totem for old tires.  From Popular Mechanics, 1923.

Bibendum in The Sketch, 1920.

Revealed: what's inside Bibendum.  From Le Rire, 1908.

Compare this to the "crinoline monster" we posted previously.

Though it looks like Bibendum is yanking up the lines of longitude from his flying horse, he's presumably pumping stranded motorists' flat tires.  From Le Rire, 1905.

This is the first image we've encountered of Bibendum relieving himself (if that floats your boat).  From Le Rire, 1913.

For when you're feeling deflated or otherwise need pumping up, it's Bibendum the doctor.  From Le Rire, 1905.

Q: How would Bibendum answer the phone?

A: "Yes, I'm Bibendum."

From a Michelin ad in Illustrated London News, 1912.

"I don't care if it snows" -- a detail from an ad in The Sketch, 1910.

Folks were driving hybrids back in 1918, as we see in Popular Mechanics.

Here's an encounter with Bibendum, the Michelin Man, whom William Gibson has described as a stomach-churningly creepy, "weird, jaded, cigar-smoking elder creature suggesting a mummy with elephantiasis ... the rolls of his pallid, rubbery flesh like the folds of a partially deflated blimp, greasy and vile" (Pattern Recognition). From The Saturday Evening Post, 1920.

From The Wheel and Cycling Trade Review, 1898.