During 2005-2006 the FBHVC undertook a survey of traders associated with, and working to support, the UK’s historic vehicle movement which is worth £3.2 billion to the UK economy. The results showed that almost 30,000 people were employed by 2,500 businesses, but the majority of these companies did have difficulty finding new staff with the right skills and knowledge.
We have now identified around 4,000 UK companies who are, in one way or another, involved with supporting the ownership, restoration, maintenance and use of historic vehicles.
At the Federation’s AGM in 2007 Tony Davies was elected as a new director with responsibility for trade and skills. Since then the Federation has been expanding on the initial work by classifying companies according to specialist services and also offering a variety of member benefits to those companies who have joined us as trade supporters.
To reinforce our influence within the UK’s political arena (that is essential to uphold the freedom to use our vehicles into the future) we will use the results of our research to prove how valuable this sector is to the UK economy. We will continue to lobby for the encouragement of training in specialist skills for future generations; it is vital to ensure the continuation and availability of such services in the future.
In October 2009 the Federation’s conference topic was ‘Trade and Skills’ which helped to demonstrate how important our trade supporters are in ensuring the ability and right of owners and users of historic vehicles to use yesterday’s vehicles on tomorrow’s road.
Further work has been going on more recently via a series of Questionnaires distributed to Clubs/Museums and Traders/Professionals. The objectives of these were to establish what services etc. are required by owners and users of historic vehicles and what can be provided by which Traders/Professionals. Sadly only a limited number of responses have been received. Nevertheless, analysis is ongoing with responses form Motorcycle Clubs completed so far. These results can be found HERE (pdf document)
Motorcycles - 13 returns
Trying to draw conclusions from the detailed analysis of motorcycle clubs responses leads me to suggest the following:
frequency of demand is generally occasionally; volume is small scale; there is a definite need; for the majority, there is little difficulty in sourcing services currently.
The three key areas for preservation seem to be braking systems, wheel repair/refurbishment and magnetos. Having said that it does seem that any ‘Wheel repair/refurbishment’ requirements can be met currently.
The most threatened specialism is tooling, whereas methods and procedures and skills are deemed to be under threat.
Other vehicles etc. 23 returns (3 Counties V&CCC; Austin Healey Club; Citroen CC; Devon Vintage CC; Fiat Register; Imp Club; Jaguar EC; Karmann Ghia OC; Keighley Bus Museum Trust; Land Rover S2 OC; MG M Group; MGOC NI; Military Vehicle Trust; Register of Unusual Microcars; Rover P6 Club; Singer OC; Steam Plough Club; Suffolk Vehicle EC; Timebus; Traction OC; West Berks. Classic Vehicle Club; Weymouth Vehicle Preservation Society and 1 individual).
These results can be found HERE (pdf document)
The analysis of Clubs/Museums’ 4 wheel vehicle and the Traders’ responses is ongoing and will be provided during the second quarter of 2010.
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