Despite all this, Keith had his mind made up and was determined to persue
his dream of running his own motor parts store. And in February 1983 after
months of searching for the right premises and constant questioning... "am
I doing the right thing?" he signed a lease agreement on a former post
office in the Church Village area.
Working 7 days and long hours at a new business was starting to take its tole on Keith and his father-in-law, who would help with
deliveries, and so an employee was sought, lucky for Keith his wife is an experienced personnel professional - the business
was growing!
Take a look at some of our "classic" delivery vehicles in this image. Our fleet includes 2 Mk2 flueorescent Fiesta vans, a Thames 1300 van and Toyota Hi-Ace. We thought that a great way of making yourself noticed was to re-spray your vehicles in a fluorescent colour and it certainly drew attention from motorings, cyclists and customers alike.
The Thames van was used a lot back in the late 80's / early 90's as an exhibit in many classic cars shows something that, as a business we always enjoyed part-taking in but rarely found the time due to the constant demand of the shop itself, so much so that after establishing the business and building a good reputation in the area the next major step in business development was in 1993 when we moved premises just 200 yards down the road to an old fuel station.
A lot of hard work and long hours were put in to convert the fuel station into a customer friendly shop with plenty of stock rooms, whilst also recruiting new staff, and organising new delivery vehicles.
We officially opened the doors to the new shop in 1994 and have remained in the shop ever since. A key factor in moving premises was the growth of the business and the emerging interest from customers in aftermarket accessories and in particular alloy wheels and tyres.The new shop had a lot more floor space that could display many sets of alloy wheels and many other performance accessories, tuning parts and body modifications items.
We are one of the few motor parts shops to stock a large range of alloy wheels for many vehicles and can fit them onsight too. Back in the day this was a rare thing and because of this we have established ourselves as South Wales' leading supplier of aftermarket alloy wheels and have attracted customers from all over Wales, the UK and the World, thanks to the Internet.
Our first website was published in 1999 and contained directions and opening times. Our most successful website was www.ptcruzin.co.uk. When Chrysler launched the PT Cruiser in 2000, Keith fell in love and bought one. He was soon to find that in America there were a lot of performance modifications that could be made to the car, and as it looked similar to a 1950's Hot-Rod the look and feel could be re-created rather easily, unlike any other car of its time.
The UK Cruisers PITP at Billing, Northamption which was always an enjoyable and successful show event for us where our heavily modified fleet of 4 PT Cruisers were exhibits, winning many a competition along the way. Dissapointment at one sho however, prompted Keith to take his modifiation to a new level by converting his PT Cruiser car into a 2-door panel van.
To this day we are still based in the same location, although the building has been through many re-developments, with the recent coming in 2006 when we extended the garage area and introduced move shop floor space in order to accomodate our expanding range of alloy wheels and tyres.
Our website nowadays bring together all the good things that we offer, great products, a thorough garage service, reliable delivery and most importantly knowledgable, enthusiastic and helpful customer services. Over the years our business has changed and developed from being your standard parts stockist, to specialist car accessories supplier, to major stock holder of alloy wheels and tyres, to technology enhanced garage services.
If you're in need of a part we have it down to a fine art - car parts, accessories and services - Roadrunner Motorparts.
