INTRODUCTION

Our business was initiated after the second world war, by Mr R Knowles, who still provides consultancy to this day. The business was originally set up to repair and maintain agricultural machinery after the second world war. A natural progression into commercial vehicle bodybuilding and subsequent movement into road haulage operating a wide range of vehicles including platforms and tippers followed over the next few years.

In the mid 1960's the company started to provide a quality second hand truck spares department, providing reconditioned assemblies and components to the local haulage community. As a result we were offered a Foden Parts stockist franchise, which developed into a full distributorship in the early 1970's. Complimentary to the Foden Products we began to distribute the Fiat truck range, around this time we moved from the original premises in Matlock to a new purpose built premises in Somercotes. This facility included one of the first commercially available rolling road in the midlands, dynamic brake testing, transmission drive shaft balancing and elevated under vehicle steam cleaning as well as all the standard utilities required for commercial vehicle Department of Environment Testing.

During this time it became apparent there was a need for reduction gear boxes and integrated power take off units. We developed our first power take off units to compliment the Foden trucks we were selling to make us more competitive in the market place, this was quickly followed by development of our 'Maxirange' main truck gearbox. During this time we integrated accounts based computing and Computer Aided Drafting and Design into the manufacturing process.

In 1988 we moved to our present purpose built location to specialise in the design and manufacture of Knowles 'Sandwich' Power Take Off units and specialist gearboxes.

Nowadays the company has Distributed network computing, CAD/CAM design and pre-manufacture, Computerised Numerical Control machining of our components. Static and dynamic reliability testing facilities, backed up by comprehensive vehicle recording allowing us complete product traceability.

We have always been a progressive concern and now have a worldwide reputation for quality, service and reliability.