American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 251 June 2020 | Page 29

my prior work, and many of my first customers are still Zodiac dealers today - people such as Ger Dijkshoorn, Motor Saloon and Kees Rozenboom. After that, customers in Sweden, Germany, France and Italy soon followed. "Back then, regardless of where the parts were actually being made, most shops in Europe would buy direct from the United States. There really wasn't a European custom parts distributor here in Europe at that stage at all, so we were the first - we pioneered and created the market we all know and see today with Zodiac." The first Zodiac catalog appeared in 1982, and around that time Ton and Marianne exhibited at IFMA, the then large trade fair in Cologne - the precursor to today's INTERMOT. "We displayed everything in large glass showcases, and it worked," says Marianne. "We attracted attention and international growth and gained momentum. Foreign agents were hired and took the orders in their markets. They then passed them on to Zodiac and everything was sent out from the Dutch warehouse." "We ordered what we needed in Taiwan," says Ton, "and we soon had more than 1,000 part numbers. The order times were three to six months, so you had to be able to accurately estimate what you needed, when you would need it and how many of each part." The thick, modern day 'Bikers Book' Zodiac catalog now contains more than 5,500 Genuine Zodiac part numbers alone. Genuine Zodiac products are produced in Taiwan, with the administration and worldwide sales in Hong Kong; European sales and inventory are at the Zodiac International headquarters warehouse at Mijdrecht in the Netherlands. After that start in Europe, it wasn't long before suppliers of other brands, especially American brands, also wanted to start selling through Zodiac. "The first was Rivera Primo, closely followed by Delkron, and now we have more than 370 brands in our catalog, 300 of which are American," says Vincent Pels. Being 'his father's son', Vincent grew up with drag racing, but realizing at an early age that electronics and the rise of the computer would be important during his lifetime, rather than automatically starting to work for his father straight from college, he first worked for IBM for a while, before www.AMDchampionship.com From its beginnings in 1985, the Zodiac catalog has become a staple - now available in six languages. making the switch to Zodiac in advance of his father's desire to retire. "I grew up with drag racing," says Vincent, "and although mine is mostly an office job these days, I'd rather be getting oil under my fingernails than flying a desk!" Vincent is active in the drag racing team, developing new parts and playing a major role in the construction and maintenance of the Zodiac Top Fuel drag bike - overseeing technical developments, such as a complete camshaft for the nitro-fired 1,000 hp plus drag racer, a machine that is highly regarded in the European Top Fuel class, with his father having been a multiple times European Champion. Zodiac is able to achieve EU approvals for both its own and its vendor's product lines. Zodiac had to move to a larger space quite soon after starting, then moved twice before occupying the present day facilities on Industrieweg in Mijdrecht. Along the way, Zodiac pioneered several dealer initiatives that eventually became standard industry practice in Europe - the annual dealer show, annual print catalog produced in-house in multiple language editions, using an advanced CMS, that also feeds the online catalog and B2B Dealer Lounge (Vincent's computer industry background proving invaluable at that stage), multi-language monthly dealer newsletters and multilingual, multimarket pricing - something that became a whole lot simpler in of Europe's main markets with the advent of the Euro single currency in 1999. Vincent says that one of the big reasons why Zodiac succeeded was because many smaller companies - in the USA as well as Europe - found it difficult to reliably source good quality production in Taiwan. Many found that the expensive tooling and molds that they had paid for within their pricing were then used by the factory to sell the exact same product to anybody else who wanted it - generally at a lower price, the initial tooling cost having already been covered. "With the kind of purchasing organization and control we have, with self-owned factories and good links with reliable, independent component makers as our set-up, has meant that for our own products, if a sample was sent and a mold was made, then it was recorded here in the West to prevent counterfeits and sales to third parties. "We own that tooling and we have 100 percent control. We specify the materials and all aspects of the processes so that we can be confident '5,500 genuine Zodiac part numbers alone' of the quality. That is the dynamic that created Zodiac in the first place and the well-known ZEL part number (Zodiac Enterprises Limited) is still a common sight on all sorts of products, including famous names such as Bates headlights, to name just one of the hundreds of examples." The roots of Zodiac come from the H- D scene - drag racing and customizing - and that is partly why Zodiac became and remain so close to the American market. The Zodiac drag race team has been at the top in the Top Fuel class in Europe for years and has often competed in races in the USA. Zodiac remains one of the principal 'go to' distributors for American vendors to this day and brings some unique benefits to the table for vendors and dealers alike. "We are the only distributor in Europe with our own full workshop - dyno, CNC machining, prototyping, the full set-up. Not only do we develop our drag racer, we also build our own custom bikes, which are our 'business cards' at trade fairs. We build them 100% street legal so they can be ridden on the road, a condition that all customs built by us must meet, so that AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - JUNE 2020 29