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At MCD Services they build rally cars, good rally cars. Nothing so unusual about that, although good cars and sound companies san be hard to find at this end of the business. But there may be a little more to the story than you think. Peter Newton reports
Merseyside entrepreneur Geoff Fielding's not so philanthropic investment in MCD Services, a commercial rally preparation business based in Widnes, may have been an even better timed move than he suspected.
Geoff is a businessman first, a rally driver and competition enthusiast second. Owner of some 13 companies, his principal concern is MCD (Mainland - formerly Merseyside - Car Deliveries) an impressive haulage operation based on five main depots which handles nationwide car movements - over 150,000 vehicles per annum - on behalf of four major manufacturers in addition to scores of other clients. At 33, Geoff is undeniably wealthy; his business interests cover several aspects of the automobile trade, including dealerships; and the trappings of success are all about. He runs at least four cars including a brand new Porsche 911 Turbo, a Range Rover; a Rover 2600 and a Mazda; there's a Cessna 210 which puts his large depot at Rochester in Kent within one hour and 10 minutes of MCD's headquarters in Liverpool, and also serves as an airborne family runabout. (There's also a Liverpool-based Chipmunk for those odd days when acrobatic indulgence takes the place of mere airborne A to B).
Closer scrutiny will also reveal a powerboat and a second family home in the Lake District; in short, here is a man who can afford to indulge himself; a man who has worked himself into such a position via the expedient of shrewd expansion in a modestly successful family business.
So MCD Services rides on the back of this success, providing the indulgence of a fully equipped centre to build, service and feed this man's favourite pastime? - A tax loss which also provides employment, goodwill and a modicum of promotion? To think along these lines would be to seriously under-estimate the nature of the man and to seriously misconstrue the ultimate purpose of MCD Services and the men who form the backbone of this new venture. In essence it's these employees who tend to give one the primary insight into why one should take this operation as far more than mere self-indulgence. Fielding will talk convincingly about MCD Services being a self-contained commecial enterprise that's going to make money; that it broke even in its first full year of trading and that prospects are far more lucrative than he first imagined; but it's the personnel and their respect for Fielding as an employer which somehow says more.
A look at the backgrounds of key personnel, Ray Sherratt and Dave Campion, somehow says as much, if not more for the stable and assured future of MCD Services as a top level rally team and preparation base.
Chief engineer, Ray Sherratt, has been preparing Geoff's rally cars ever since the latter first became involved in rallying, (first prize to those who know that Geoff Fielding finished second in the RAC Hillclimb championship in the early '70s), but the pair knew each other long before then; the dates recede into Geoff's early competition forays on the sands of Southport, and his early autocross days.
Ray himself has been involved with rallying some 14 years, beginning his apprenticeship with Skip Brown's Liverpool-based AVS concern. His richly varied experiences includes a season with Keith Billows, during which the latter scored a remarkable fourth overall on the World Championship Rideau Lakes Rally in Canada, and a season looking after the Martini Formula One offshore powerboats, when the engines to be prepared were iron block 454 cubic inch.....
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Middle-Right - Dave Campion: "A lot of people get the idea that we're just a rich man's plaything; that might have been the case three years ago, before MCD Services was born. . . ."
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