American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 251 June 2020 | Page 27

Zodiac International 50th Anniversary! 1969 was a special year - Jimi Hendrix rewrote the rule book at Woodstock, the movie Easyrider came out, Harley 'merged' with American Machine & Foundry (AMF), Mike Corbin started making custom saddles and Zodiac started buying, making and delivering custom motorcycle parts... WORDS BY Robin Bradley / Publisher [email protected] PICTURES BY Onno Wieringa / Madness Photography www.madnessphotography.eu The story of the Dutch Zodiac International distribution business we know today is largely the story of a certain drag bike racing Dutchman called Ton Pels and his son Vincent - who took over as GM when his father retired. However, the origin of the story goes way back even deeper into the earliest days of the custom parts aftermarket than that - to 1969 in fact, the year often regarded as 'Genesis' for the custom parts industry. The man who, in effect, started Zodiac off in 1969 was Joe Phillipson - more recently of Adjure lights fame. We asked him what he remembered from this time: "The business that would become Zodiac was created after I quit my job at Hallcraft Industries, a wellknown spoke wheel company at the time. The owner, Marv Hall, had sold the company to Hurst/Airheart, of Chopper brakes fame, having previously been acquired by Sunbeam Products, a very old American consumer goods business with roots going back to the late nineteenth century. "While at Hallcraft, I had wanted to get hold of a spokes line that was less expensive than anything else on the market at the time, but of the same or even better quality. I contacted a company in Taiwan and sure enough they gave me a really, really good quote, and sent me samples. Those samples were excellent, so I made a sales tour, racked up a load of orders, then I found out that the spokes were not in fact Taiwanese after all. The owner of the company I'd contacted got his cousin in L.A. to buy some, ship them out to him, and he then sent them in to me, passing them off as something that he made! That taught me a very important lesson. "Once Hallcraft had been sold, things went downhill. The new owners didn't have a clue about the motorcycle business. They told us to drop the Taiwan idea, and quite soon I quit, along with Marv and Jim Smith, who had been the GM at Hallcraft. When I left, I took the spoke samples and the contact details for the factory in Taiwan with me. "I contacted a guy called Tom Fairburn whom we used to buy rims from. He had them made in Taiwan and they were pretty good, so I figured he must know his way around that jungle. Joe Phillipson was there at the start of Zodiac in 1969. Ton Pels (left) with son Vincent - check out the trophy line-up - drag racing is the family passion. www.AMDchampionship.com AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - JUNE 2020 27