RECORD SALES FOR MOTORSPORT COMPANY AS LOCKDOWN GIVES ENTHUSIASTS TIME TO PLAY

Gloucester based Forge Motorsport is enjoying sales up 25 per cent on the same period in 2019 and has employed six extra staff to help meet demand.

But in March 2020, Peter Miles, Managing Director of Forge Motorsport, had no idea what was going to happen when he closed the doors following government advice to go home or work from home as the pandemic started to take effect.

Forge Engineering launched more than 30 years ago as a precision engineering company serving major Gloucestershire companies such as Birds Eye Wall’s (Unilever) and ICI Fibres (Dupont). It began diversifying around 1996 to design and manufacture its own range of performance aftermarket car parts.

Managing Director Peter Miles said: “We are super proud of what we have built at Forge, we have dedicated, passionate staff who all take pride in what they produce.

We have offices in Orlando USA, Taichung Taiwan and multiple resellers worldwide –for a small firm in Gloucestershire, we are supplying the world.”

As the uncertainty of Covid increased and having furloughed all staff, sales manager Alex Harrhy saw online orders rising to unprecedented levels. “In the first seven days we had more than 550 online retail orders and another 200 from our dealer network. I had to call Pete and tell him we needed to somehow get back to work safely.”

Pete added: “We had to move quickly to restart production. We soon moved to a socially distanced day and night shift with 95 per cent of all staff back, and we could start to see light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I am super proud of the amazing people I work with. They are an awesome team.”

Order levels remained unprecedented throughout the first quarter of the year, added Pete. “With people at home on furlough, no pubs open, shops closed, click and collect restaurants only, folks were sat at home shopping for car parts.”