As a nation, we are used to delays. Whether they’re related to huge queues on our busiest roads, trains that are nearly always late or major infrastructure projects that are massively behind schedule, it is depressingly common to hear of things running behind.
It is therefore almost unheard of to come across an initiative actually ahead of schedule. But that’s the impressive position fledgling tyre manufacturer Nova Motorsport currently finds itself in.
For those who need reminding, this is the company created after the demise of the much-loved Avon brand last year when parent organisation Goodyear decided to close the Melksham tyre-making facility. Many of the key staff transferred across to the Nova ‘start-up’, which falls under the SPC Rubber Group umbrella, and its initial ambition was to continue supplying and producing tyres for disciplines synonymous with the Avon/Cooper names for decades: principally historic racing, hillclimbing and rallycross.
An existing Camac factory in Portugal was acquired and all the old Avon equipment was transported across the continent from Wiltshire. The aim – set at the start of the year – was for the first tyres to be produced in September, which Nova’s management felt was an ambitious target. Yet it smashed that by five weeks as track testing of new ACB9 Formula Ford tyres began in August, Nova’s commercial director James Weekley describing the company’s rapid development as “phenomenal”.
“It took less time to ship the equipment than we were expecting, so that’s one area where we gained time,” explains Weekley of the factors that helped Nova get ahead of schedule. “Also the technical and engineering teams in Portugal have done an astonishing job of implementing everything we had from Melksham into the factory – the team’s been going above and beyond to a whole other level.
“The pace is picking up now, it’s very much the snowball effect. We’ve got countless track tests and evaluations lined up, starting imminently, and will be flowing at a significant pace for many, many months now as we roll through the range and industrialise them and start bringing things to market.”
Given the breadth and diversity of categories catered for by Avon’s old range of rubber, Formula Ford may sound like an intriguing choice for Nova’s first tyres, especially considering the Kent-powered cars are no longer the essential stepping stone on the single-seater ladder they once were. But Weekley explains there are “multiple factors” that make the ACB9s a very logical starting point.
“There’s a lot of Formula Ford cars out there,” he says. “There’s a lot of good drivers and there’s an ocean of data, so it was a very easy and cost-effective product to go out and test.
“You don’t have to go and hire a circuit exclusively with a team that’s going to bring 15 mechanics along for a single day’s testing. It was an easy one for us to arrange a test at short notice and get very high quality data that we can reference back with data of old, so for those reasons it was a really obvious choice.”
"The tyres were indistinguishable from the products produced in Melksham previously, which is exactly what we aimed to do" James Weekley
Initial testing commenced at the Braga circuit in Portugal, half an hour from Nova’s new factory. Further assessments were then conducted at Snetterton and Brands Hatch, with experienced historics racer Simon Hadfield completing much of the running, to ensure the new rubber performed exactly the same as the old UK-made Avons.
“That went fantastically,” says Weekley. “There’s always a few nerves going into these things – no matter how much homework you’ve done, until you start turning laps, you never truly know how it’s going to work. But it went flawlessly – we couldn’t have hoped for a better result from those tests. The tyres were indistinguishable from the products produced in Melksham previously, which is exactly what we aimed to do.”
Full-scale production of those tyres is now due to begin by the end of this year, while the floodgates are set to open as a host of old Avon ranges are reindustrialised. Stock was built up in the final months of the Melksham factory’s operation and this is being continuously monitored by the Nova staff to ensure they prioritise making the tyres that are needed most urgently.
Alongside the manufacturing in Portugal, plenty of work has been going on behind the scenes by the commercial team as Nova signs new agreements with various organisers. The latest example is a wide-ranging deal with the Historic Sports Car Club, but Weekley says more announcements are imminent.
“We’ve got a number of irons in the fire and there’s a quite significant amount of new business,” he states. “The announcements for the new contracts are quite major because they are certainly some flags in the sand as to where we’re going.”
All this positive progress from Nova is important for the motorsport industry as a whole. The tyre sector has been in strife for years, triggered by Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic, then exacerbated by developments such as the uncertainty over Avon’s future and some brands cutting their ranges.
There are still supply concerns in places, but Weekley believes this “turbulent time” is finally starting to settle. Now it just needs Nova to continue avoiding any delays as the next phase of its development begins.
