Wilson looks behind iron curtain
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• Secondhand dealer Alan Wilson is committed to having at least one new product at Expo Coach '92 at Castle Donington this October, which could cost up to £20,000 less than its UK competition (CM 13-19 Feb).
Wilson visited the Belgrade Automobile Fair last week in his quest to find foreign-built coaches or dual-purpose vehicles to use to penetrate the UK new vehicle market.
Before visiting the fair he held talks with a Western European manufacturer on the possibility of acting as sole agent for a dualpurpose vehicle it could be selling by the end of 1992. But he is being tempted by other vehicles at the show — particularly the Charisma, which is built in Serbia, Yugoslavia. His dealership, Alan Wilson PSV, has already sold six secondhand Charismas since it set up at Ratby in Leicestershire last February.
And two months ago it bought the Charisma spare parts business from Rainham, Essex-based Ensign Bus, which until around two years ago sold the 12m unit in the UK.
If Wilson does enter a sales agreement with the integral's manufacturer FAP-Famos, he would not expect to start selling the luxury coaches here until next year. If he decides not to, coach operator Hamiltons of Uxbridge says it will bring in a 415 from Famos in August and "help other operators buy it". It has seven of around 40 Charismas owned by operators in the UK and Ireland.
Wilson is also considering a citybus and dual-purpose vehicle shown at the fair by Toyama Avtomobilov in Motorjev. A representative from the Sloveniabased firm is visiting him within the next two months to discuss the integral.
Another vehicle possibly in the running is the Spanish Uni car bodywork on the Dennis Javelin coach chassis (CM 9-15 January).
"We are looking for quality vehicles we can sell at affordable prices," says Wilson, who reckons savings can be made by buying vehicles which are built with lower labour costs than in Britain.
"A lot of companies think that now the iron curtain is down they can sell into Eastern bloc countries, they don't realise that companies over there produce up to 15,000 vehicles a year." says Wilson.
But one product he would like to have the opportunity to sell overseas, particularly on the Continent, is the 425 which Plaxton bought from Duple in 1989. He marketed the integral for four years when he worked as a freelance consultant and says he had an enquiry from a Swedish company for 25 of the 53-seaters.