INDUSTRY PEOPLE
“If you’ve got a Honda XR-500, and you’re in Texas, you’re
rebuilding it, and you want to get a pipe and muffler for it,
where do you go? If you go to a Honda dealer they might
say, ‘we stopped making those 30 years ago’, then you’ll
get online and Google the part, and then probably end up
on our site which has a listing for that particular make and
model. We can do the whole system, and it’ll have all the
pictures right there, so the customer will know it’s the right
type of muffler. It also showcases some of the bespoke vehicles that
arrive on-site for various repairs and modifications.
“If you turned up and said ‘I have this make
and model of car’, there’s three ways we’d go,” Colin
says. Scenario A is that we’d get your old muffler and
we’d replicate that. Scenario B is that if the car was here
we’d just build it to the car. The third option is to build
from some dimensions.” The Facebook page is also part of the branding of the
company. It’s up-to-date and showcases current projects
and highlights from the workshops. brands, and in the event they don’t have it,
Colin can draw up in CAD send through a confirmation of
the measurements and do the whole transaction without
the muffler. This ensures repeat businesses and keeps
their customers’ machines working, enabling the mufflers
to be swapped out quickly.
“One of the key things about the businesses is that
older earthmoving machinery has created a need for
specialised work. It’s one of the reasons the business has
been successful,” says Colin.
“A lot of the gear we are dealing with is older gear, and it
would be easy just to ring up a dealership, but dealerships
probably support more later model stuff. Vanessa is
dealing with people with an older machine where the
client is thinking: “Where the hell do I go to get this part?”
Motorbike mufflers waiting to be painted. Extensive exhaust work on a Mustang race car.
Other parts of the business are growing, too, especially
exports of muffler parts.
Since taking over Musket Mufflers, Colin and Vanessa have
seen a huge increase in orders for mufflers to countries all
around the world, although Manawatu Muffler Centre had
already been fabricating mufflers prior to the purchase.
Sometimes a client will only want one unit manufactured,
“The world is such a small place now that it doesn’t really
and at other times, huge orders are placed.
matter if it’s manufactured in New Zealand, as we can
Another part of the business is motorbike
send the muffler to Texas just as easy as to
“The world is such a small mufflers, so there are multiple streams of
anywhere in New Zealand. Any part can be
work, including earthmoving. Anything that
shipped worldwide taking no more than 10 place now that it doesn’t really
matter if it’s manufactured in needs an exhaust or muffler repaired or
days by international courier.”
fabricated, the shop can do it.
New Zealand, as we can send
There’s still a range of face-to-face ways the
The earthmoving side of the business has seen
businesses can help a client, though, and the the muffler to Texas just as them supply replacement exhaust and muffler
Farringtons still enjoy that personal kind of easy as to anywhere in New parts for projects as big as Transmission
Zealand.”
service.
Gully. Musket can supply off the shelf for all
Vanessa explains that a lot of the cars have been modified
as well, and are as low to the ground as possible. “Our
boys need to fabricate something and fit it to suit the
modifications. You can’t get that just off the shelf. The
boys need to be right under the car to see what it needs,
so we still have a great deal of drive-in clients.”
w w w. c a m m a g a z i n e . c o . n z
CAM December 2018
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