The Garage 331

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INDUSTRYNEWS Industry insight Presented by MOTUL Hugh Dowding Motul Vice President – Strategic Committee The Garage recently interviewed Hugh Dowding, who is Vice President of the Strategic Committee at Motul, at the Silverstone Classic weekend, Hugh gives us his insight into Motul and why the company is looking forward to the opportunities the future will provide as well as the passion they hold within the industry. The Garage would like to thank Hugh and the team at Motul for their kind sponsorship of the Industry Insight during 2021. You recently revealed a lot of new products at the Silverstone Classic weekend, exciting times at Motul? The UK is the second largest market in Europe, a market where people really love and care about cars. Once they buy a car they really look after them and Silverstone of course, is the home of Motorsport, with our new product launch at this iconic venue there are a lot of reasons to be excited. You are well known in the biking world predominately, but you have a far wider range than that including being involved in Formula1 back in 1974? Yes, people do know us for bikes and power sports, but we have always been heavily involved in four wheels as well, indeed at the Classic weekend we had a Forumla1 1974 BRM car on our stand, when Motul were actually the headline 6 THE GARAGE 6, 7 Industry Insight.indd 1 16/09/2021 08:45
sponsor at the time for BRM, so we have been involved with four wheeled motorsports for all those years as well. We are also renewing our efforts in the Automotive Aftermarket with a new team and a new degree of concentration on that specific market. You clearly have a foothold in the Classic car industry, how big a market is it for you today? Whatever happens in the modern-day car market, I think we can be assured that the classic market is going to increase significantly. If you look at the figures from the Federation of Historic Vehicles, there are now more than 1.5 million classic vehicles in the UK alone. So, it is an industry that is extremely important in terms of employment of people, skills in the UK and to our GDP. You are certainly a leader in the classic market, it also must be a joy to work within it? Yes, there are a number of key classic markets, the US is the biggest, closely followed by Japan, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, but our own market in the UK, as it is in the Formula1 world, is a real hub for expertise and restoration. We see a lot of the German OEMs coming to the UK for large restoration projects, because of the unique skills levels we have in this country. With Motul being a worldwide renowned brand and the ICE ban coming to the UK in 2030, how are Motul working towards this and adapting to different countries plans? The dilemma is it could be different for every country, so as you quite rightly say, 2030 for ICE, 2035 for Hybrid in the UK, but if we look at the developing world, it could be many more years before they go down this route from both an infrastructure and a GDP point of view, which means the balancing act we need to find is to deal with the mature markets to grow and sustain the business we have, to keep up to date with the specifications that are still continuously being updated for the Internal Combustion Engines, whilst also considering the next great thing. We already have a comprehensive range for Hybrids, but beyond that we are beginning to look at new generation vehicles. Although EV Vehicles have been around since 1881, we really are just at the beginning of development and evolving in this sector? It is evolving, ironically a lot of the first electric vehicles were that far back as you say and the Internal Combustion only took over because of its convenience distributing the fuel, there are still global issues about the availability and security of charging network. We also need to remember, development isn’t over, we still have hydrogen in the future and Porsche are talking about synthetic fuels. There is a lot of uncertainty at the moment with the OEMs as to which will be the longterm view. Therefore, our research and development departments are currently split across all of those areas to make sure we maintain our presence in everything. We sense a lot of excitement at Motul whilst many others in the industry have gulped at the prospect of 2030. Industry Insights celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the first fully synthetic motor oil: Motul 300V For details of the wide range of Motul workshop oils and other garage products, check out: www.motul.com Our huge passion lies in motorsport, and we know it will always continue in every sort of form. We also are very passionate about the classic car business, and we believe out of adversity comes opportunity. Motul is a privately owned, agile company with a global footprint which gives us the ability to adapt, and we will adapt. The excitement comes from the new developments that we have introduced at the Classic Weekend in the Car Care arena and especially the Bio-Clean concept that you very kindly covered in your last issue of the Garage Magazine, which can be used for many different applications within the Garage workshop. So what does the next eight years hold within Motul? It is about continuing a profitable business whilst sustaining the research and development for the future that is able to handle the customers we have today and to introduce an even better range of products doubled with an even better service. As well as always being on the lookout for the next great things and making sure that Motul is prepared for whatever challenges that may well be. The classic car market is only going to grow now with the end of the internal combustion engine, isn’t it? Yes, personally I am a classic car owner and very passionate about the cars themselves as well as classic car racing, both Motul and myself hope we get the derogations we need for classic cars to continue to survive as they are today and the market to even grow stronger. It is the noise, the smell, the sound of a classic car and let’s hope that persists. THE GARAGE 7 6, 7 Industry Insight.indd 2 16/09/2021 08:45
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