The business of supplying the world's fastest and most elite racecars with rubber may be glamorous, but it isn't always profitable. While the technological transfer can be useful to a tire maker, the cost can be punishing. But for Pirelli, whose competition successes go back more than a hundred years—beginning with Prince Scipione Borghese's victory in a seven-litre Itala in the grueling Peking-to-Paris road race of 1907—it is often the price of doing business.

Venturing in and out of racing's most elite forums, since it won its first international Grand Prix in 1913, the company left the circuit in the 1950s, following a run of victories in the early 1950s with Alberto Ascari and Ferrari. Returning to the Formula One fold twice in the 1980s (with drivers like Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet, and Gerhard Berger deploying its wares), it bowed out following the 1991 season, only to return to race again in 2010, supplying all of the major teams.

While today's Pirelli tires are easily the most technically advanced and most capable ever, a recent perusal of the company's archives in Milan—Archivio Storica Pirelli—uncovered a treasure trove of images depicting the venerable firm's faraway racing history. Wildly colorful, though they are shot in black and white, these pictures take us back to a time when grizzled daredevils in leather helmets risked their lives, pushing the boundaries of automotive performance.

_Above: _Driver Felice Nazzaro in 1922 at Automobil Club Grand Prix in France, which he won in his Fiat 804.