Starter's flag for deal on racing car seats

By ELLEN READ

A small Petone company hopes to win a $500,000 contract to supply seats for racing cars to Daimler-Chrysler.

Black Arrow director David Black contacted the car giant at a trade fair in Indianapolis last November.

Black later became the first recipient of an Industry New Zealand business exchange under the World Class New Zealanders programme.

This allowed him to spend a week in the United States visiting and working with Daimler-Chrysler and the Dodge Viper project team.

Black - whose company manufactures Racetech racing seats - received a good response.

Nothing is in writing yet, but he had a verbal assurance this week that his was the only company being spoken to about the seats.

"We're looking to make a specially modified seat for the club-racing version of Daimler-Chrysler's new Dodge Viper Competition Coupe," said Black.

"The exchange enabled me to meet the engineers first-hand and get the information we need to modify the seats for the Vipers."

Black said Daimler-Chrysler was interested in Black Arrow's seats because they met safety standards set by motor sport's controlling body, the Federation International Automobile, and were competitively priced.

Black Arrow was the only seat maker in the Southern Hemisphere to meet safety standards set by the federation.

"We're also prepared to modify the seats so they can accommodate the relatively large American physique but would still fit in the Viper's relatively small cockpit," he said.

Daimler-Chrysler expects to make about 150 of the special edition coupes over the next two years.

They will sell for about US$100,000 ($210,000) each.

Black said Industry New Zealand had also supported Black Arrow's plans to quadruple its size over the next four years through the Business Growth Service.

The company had been awarded a business growth grant of $77,800 - which it must match dollar for dollar - to improve marketing, training and e-commerce capabilities.

Black Arrow, which has eight staff, makes more than a quarter of all racing seats sold in New Zealand each year and has begun to export. It also produces and exports seats for racing and pleasure boats.

The world market for racing seats is about 1.5 million seats a year, and about a quarter of those are sold in the United States.

Black will return to Detroit in the next two months with the first sample of seats.

He was guarded about revealing much about the company's finances, but said the contract would be worth $500,000 to his company.

"We have lots of abilities down here," he said. "We have the ability to find practical solutions very quickly and easily; we've got a product of high quality that's well finished. People like the look and the feel of it.

"And obviously a project of this size is really important to us where it might not be to some of the bigger players."

He said there would be ongoing marketing benefits for the firm from being associated with the Daimler-Chrysler deal.