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t seems Peter Brock just can’t stop designing automotive products. He has recently put his design skills to work to develop and patent a sublime lightweight car hauler aptly called the Aerovault. It has largely redefined the art of car hauling. Instead of a big, blocky cube with a multitude of sharp corners and flat surfaces, Peter thought like a racecar designer and crafted a low profile, aerodynamic form with perfect curves and angles designed to slip through the air, cheating the wind and reducing drag all around. Constructed of high-strength, lightweight aluminum and composites, the Aerovault takes a little getting used to, but once you’ve tested it, you’ll never go back to a conventional square-front shape. “When I finished redesigning the Cobra Daytona GT Coupe for series production by Superformance down in South Africa, I needed something to haul it. Because they arrive completely finished as rollers, without engine or gearbox, there had to be a way to transport it around to finish the install of the engine and running gear. So, I really needed something that matched my car.” Peter started looking for a trailer, and the more he looked the more apparent it became that the trailer industry simply wasn’t up to date in vehicular structural engineering and aerodynamics. This inspired him to design his own. Then he had to find someone who could build what he wanted. He finally found an ex pro-rodeo cowboy/trailer builder who could relate to his design and understood many of the options he wanted. “He built the first one, and when I got it out on the road, everywhere I stopped people would ask, ‘Where did you get that, that’s what I want, I want to order one,” he said. At this point Peter and his wife, Gayle, discussed going into the trailer business. He went back to his friend with five new orders, but he didn’t want to give up his horse trailer business to build car haulers, but he did agree to build five more. Well, 35 trailers later, it had come to a point where Peter had more orders than his friend could handle, so they parted amicably, and Peter and Gayle moved south. This venture took them from the state of Washington to Henderson, Nevada. Aside from the fact that both Peter and Gayle like the weather in Southern Nevada, many of the critical raw material suppliers he was using were in the area. With his new manufacturing site right where he lived, Peter now had had complete control. He hired workers with exceptional qualifications to produce his trailers and fabricated his own tools using a highly reworked vintage press-brake and selfbuilt bending machines that offered a higher build quality than previously available. The Aerovault offers a fabulous number of useful features, like an integral
Garage Style Magazine Spring 2018
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