[ Archive: Newton Commercial ]
96 July 2019 MiniWorld
“...it was a case of building on mum and
dad’s success and their good work and
trying to find new ways to grow.”
or not but it’s worked very well indeed
and we’re delighted,” exclaims Richard.
Jonny explains: “When I joined the
business in 2004 it was an exciting
time because I was the next generation
bringing in new ideas, based on the
foundation of what mum and dad had
built up, which was manufacturing
quality trim. Mum worked with me
for two years and gave me a good
grounding and then got out of my way
by fundamentally retiring and allowing
me to learn on my own. Dad was still
involved heavily in the business and
he was a great sounding board. They
gave me the time and the space to
bring in my own ideas and modernise
it. As we had a great 25 years already
underneath us we had a really good
relationship with clients and we had
a really good and loyal workforce so
it was a case of building on mum and
dad’s success and their good work and
trying to fi nd new ways to grow.”
Jonny and his team developed trim for
Volkswagens, fi rstly Beetles and Karmann
Ghias and then vans and then Mk1 and
Mk2 Golfs. “Volkswagen is now pretty
big business for us,” explains Jonny,
“and we’ve gone into other marques like
Escorts now and Peugeot 205 so we’ve
been trying to fi nd those hot hatches
over the last fi ve years and working out
what is the next modern classic, such
as the Renault 5 or even the Metro.”
However, the company is not about
to burn its bridges as Mini customers
are vital to their business. They have
spent much time and money improving
on their Mini products. “We’ve just
developed foams for the MPi Minis so
we are starting to sell those now. They
were good seats and they are starting
to need repairs, especially around the
bolsters, and people want to restore
them, especially the leather seats asthe value of the cars is going up. There
are loads of shows, especially with the
60th anniversary. We are doing a Mk1
build with Mini Spares at the IMM/
Mini 60 in Bristol, like we did at the 2014
IMM.” They will also have an open day
for customers on 21 June this year.
Jonny was eager to show us their
latest developments in Mini trim. In
recent years he has been working hard
to improve both their Grey Fleck vinyl
for early Minis, getting a better match
for colour and texture, and the same
goes for Cooper Gold Brocade. “The Gold
Brocade has been my pet project as the
purists were not quite happy with what
we had. Trim from surviving cars will
have faded over the years so Jonny was
thrilled to source a roll of original Gold
Brocade. “We have therefore managed to
get the Gold Brocade leather-cloth made
as it was. The key was to get the gold the
right colour and in the grooves. We’reA social event for the
Newton Commercial team.