How we got here?
Established in 2003, Celtic Motorhomes grew into a medium sized conversion business and although never really profitable, we payed the bills and kept up to 7 people employed. We grew organically from Bongos, to VW T5's and T6's and then the larger Crafter, Tge and Boxer / Ducato. Due to combination of factors that I would rather not dwell on, we became less efficient and just seemed to lose ground very quickly over the past 2 years or so. In September 2022 we had no option but to file for voluntary liquidation.
Whilst I would never want to offer us up for any business awards, the one thing we have usually got right is the van build and customer service. We are immensely proud of the work we did as Celtic Motorhomes, and as such we do not want to hide the fact that we started there, and indeed spent 19 years making vans that people loved.
Having occupied 2 buildings for the past 6 years we managed to secure the smaller of our buildings as premises for the new business to work from. The current set up is based around a 1 van workshop on the ground floor with Myself (Ed) carrying out most of the conversion work with help when required from Nick. The upper floor is predominantly Nicks domain where the leather trimming, blinds, panel making etc take place. We are trying to obtain a good work / life balance, so none of the 80-90 hour weeks that I have done regularly to reach deadlines....OK...that still does happen now and then, but I am trying...honest😉.
Jacqui handles all the admin and deals with all the parts sales including the quilted cab blinds, insulated rear door covers, rear door handle relocation kits and cab lights.
The aim is that Vans will be built to a quality standard and then thoroughly tested before handover. Often and extra week or 2 can be needed, but from experience, this is not a process we can rush. With the current supply chain issues in both van and conversion parts, there will inevitably be delays that we cannot foresee.
We will not be undertaking any massively bespoke builds as the time taken to build these just gets out of hand and with a one van workshop it will have too much impact on the next van build. But if its something we have done before, then it shouldn't be too difficult. In the very near future we plan to produce our own very limited range of 4x4 vans for sale. The vehicle supply chain will have an impact on this, but hopefully it is settling down a bit now, even though the cost of everything is far from settling down.
But even though I am not a big fan of the tag line ' One life ...live it', its certainly something I give a lot more thought to the older I get😉.
We are keeping the Celtic Motorhomes facebook and websites viewable but shut to interaction. That way anyone can research our history and reputation, but we cannot engage or do business from there.