As it should be when connecting tire companies with restaurant reviews, the Michelin Guide's popularity started to rise with the innovation of the "motor tourist," the vehicle-toting traveler. The Michelin Tyre company made its first Guide Michelin France in 1900. The first Michelin Guides were just driver's handbooks, with tips for vehicle maintenance and nearby petrol stations. These pocket Michelin Guides were given out freely for "l'instruction sur l'emploi des pneus Michelin pour voitures et automobile" (instructions for the use of Michelin tires on cars and automobiles). The ultimate goal was to reassure new drivers that, even if they left town in their new motor vehicles, they could still find petrol stations, mechanics, and even post offices. As Kory Olston points out in her study of Michelin maps, the guide's popularity was indebted to the rise of motor tourism in turn-of-the-century France. The Michelin maps were designed differently than standard travel guides; town plans were relatively sparse and two-tone, with major roadways taking the focus instead of urban landmarks. The guide catered to bourgeois drivers, offering a "more restrained number of tourist venues" with a "clarity of display to make it easier for their readers to traverse unfamiliar municipalities easily."

In 1926, these "tourist venues" finally included restaurants for motor tourists to frequent on their holidays in the countryside. The Guide of 1926 included a "restaurant star," or a single star to denote a particularly special dining experience. A decade later, the second and third stars showed up, along with a criteria: one star for "Une très bonne table dans sa catégorie" (a good site in its category), two for "Table excellente, mérite un détour" (an excellent site worth a detour), and three for "Une des meilleures tables, vaut le voyage" (one of the best sites, worthy of a trip). Within three decades, the Guide had gone from a mechanic's handbook to a special purchase for rich motor tourists looking to get the best out of their journeys.

The three-star feat is more difficult to explain. One possible reason for its "impossibility" may come from the fact that the third star didn't exist during the WWII era. During the War, the Guide was simply reprinted from its 1939 edition, and then post-war shortages forced Michelin to put a halt on three-star ratings until 1950. Guide critics are anonymous, so there's not much testimony on the elusive three-star review--but we can guess that the restaurants that do have three stars have supreme quality of ingredients, consistency between visits, and head chefs with dedicated personalities.

Sources:

Kory Olson, Maps for a New Kind of Tourist: The First Guides Michelin France (1900–1913). Available here.

Michelin Guide History. Provence and Beyond. Here.

The Michelin Guide: Over 100 Editions and a Century of History. ViaMichelin. Here.

It's also worth noting that Michelin is a family-owned company with a very peculiar business philosophy. They believe that their core product is mobility, rather than tires, and they have showed time and again a strong commitment to promoting easier ways to travel, which in the early 20th century was indeed a main obstacle to the auto industry as people did not projected themselves traveling long distances on a daily basis. The Guides were intended to facilitate road travelling; as were a series of road milestones that Michelin helped installed in France throughout most of the 20th century in order for drivers to locate themselves in their maps. Another example was their decision in the late 40's to invest heavily in the radial tire, which was consider a more reliable tire as it lasted longer and was safer than the industry's standards for the time. To many competitors, the radial was a nonsensical investment, as it implied redesigning factories for a product that would last longer and therefore sell less. The company has retained this approach and in many ways it helps explain why a small family company in the middle-of-French-nowhere could become a world leader.