International Dealer News IDN 113 July 2013 | Page 14

ROAD TRIP
the single most important income stream, and one that locks-in consumer loyalty and traffic. While very few can ever have envisaged quite where it would lead, 50 plus years ago one man who clearly understood the opportunities that performance tuning and servicing represented was Paul Marrolaud. n 1958 the company he founded unveiled what is believed to have been among the very first diagnostic test benches for powered two-wheelers. Initially for moped tuning, as technology has evolved in that time, the chain of events that the first test benches unleashed has resulted in the dynamometer designs and diagnostic, tuning and service opportunities that we now take for granted in the 21st century. Marrolaud went on to launch his first motorcycle test bench, of the kind that we would recognise today, in 1973. That design developed rapidly and gave the company a wide range of additional business opportunities. By the late 1980s MaroloTest offered dealers and performance engineers access to a complete programme of workshop equipment, from dynamometers and bike lifts to tyre changers, diagnostic equipment, electronic wheel balancers and frame checking equipment. In 2000 the company was acquired by present owner Jean-Luc Marchand, and a year later moved into its present manufacturing, warehouse and distribution building at Cholet, near Nantes. In the past decade the company has continued to innovate. A new range of lifts and related accessories and equipment for motorcycles (the MAROLOLift programme) was followed three years later by a new, versatile and patented modular lift concept called the MODULift. daptable for a large range of vehicles (from motorcycles to Quad/ATVs, lawnmowers and small tractors) the new line captured the trend in workshop equipment use - one that calls for tools that offer a flexible return on workshop space investments.

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ModuLift open with ATVQuad

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In 2005 the company launched its MaroloGREEN programme, for the garden and recreational spaces equipment market, and a year later they went on the international motorcycle industry expansion trail by starting to exhibit at INTERMOT (Cologne, Germany) and EICMA (Milan, Italy). The trend towards environmentally-friendly workshop solutions, ones that met the new generation of waste product disposal regulations and needs for techniques that reduced downstream costs, saw the introduction of the acclaimed

MAROLOBio biological parts washer in 2008. A year later the company expanded the building it had moved into just 8 years earlier to the present 3,000 Sqm it now occupies, and in 2010 “went back to its roots” with the launch of a new generation of dynamometers in collaboration with MI Systems (Fuchs SA). Called ‘POWERFULL’, in reference to the comprehensive range of diagnostic and tuning opportunities the line provides for dealers, a scooter test bench (the ‘POWERSCOOT’) was added to the

Sales & Marketing Director Raphael Girard - “Our patented ModuLift programme gives motorcyle dealers access to a high quality system that maximises return on their workshop space investment”

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INTERNATIONAL DEALER NEWS - JULY 2013