Is anyone making good bumpers anymore?
- Thread starter discostew
- Start date
Tactical rovers in LA? I'm planning on getting one next month. Today was the last straw for my terrafirma bumper:
My fault tho I suppose.. when you've thought you've trimmed enough.. trim some more...
Surprisingly my tires won this battle
My fault tho I suppose.. when you've thought you've trimmed enough.. trim some more...
Surprisingly my tires won this battle
I had a “slimline” front bumper made for my D1 by Overtyme. Whether it was Bill or his son, I’m not entirely sure (I got it about 10 months ago) but the construction and welds are excellent either way. Still haven’t gotten around to installing it, though.
I can’t remember exactly. I wasn’t in a hurry for it, and they had some delays due to the hurricane that blasted through right as I put my request in. Few weeks maybe. It was built to order.
I have some of this guys stuff on my truck, very well made. i would suggest calling them though just to see what they can and will do.
ROCK WARE - Range Rover, Land Rover products, Sliders Bumpers Suspension
Submit your Off Road pictures and win cash
www.rockware.net
Almost twenty fucking years without even a photography update... I don't understand why people don't see the importance in web presence.
Step 1: Go to Squarespace
Step 2: Make your shit look professional.
Done.
I've seen some good stuff out of them in the past, but it's hard to remember what and where. Regardless, they've been around for a long time; long enough for those shock mounts to have been thrown out of "Kyle's Window" on an earlier version of this forum. Honestly, I've been wondering what they're putting out today.
Anyone got any shots of their more recent stuff? I mean, for a Discovery, that is. Defenders don't count. That's like looking at a bumper for a Wrangler. It requires no style or creativity to function well and look right. I want to see what they can do; not something everyone else can.
Still, even a larger photograph of a Defender bumper is better than nothing. At least we can see attention to detail, which if I recall correctly was pretty damned good.
Cheers,
Kennith
It's fun for people who were into computers when the Internet gave way to the World Wide Web.
For marketing, brand presence, and general information about products, though... It's not just a lack of something; it's a subtraction of value. People will close a tab if a page takes more than three seconds to load, and even I'll wander off if the only pictures available are essentially the size of a modern gallery thumbnail even when expanded.
There's also no incentive for people to pass the images around, or direct others to the site. You've got to be looking really, really hard to find those guys. As an example, have you ever seen a link to GBR's site if you didn't specifically look for them? No, you haven't; and neither has anyone else. Same goes for Rockware.
It's not fucking hard. It might take five damned minutes a week to maintain at the most if it's not an actual e-commerce arrangement, and anyone can do it.
If you are stuck in the past, so are your profits, and any potential you had for expansion. It's kind of hard to sell bumpers if the only people who know you exist already have them. It's foolish, annoying, and I've had to deal with sites like that so much recently that it actually pisses me off.
How can I trust someone to get something done if they can't even get the site right? If that site was a brick and mortar business, it would be a single wide trailer in the middle of a junk yard, with a mangy dog eating leftover Hungry Man meals beside a sleeping fat guy with his feet cooling in a kiddy pool.
People need to understand that their website is the front of their building and their showroom now. You can't really complain about slow sales and lack of interest if that's what potential customers are seeing. I've never hear a peep out of them, but others certainly have complained many times over the years.
It's high time we demanded a bit more out of people if we want things to kick back up. If that makes me look like an asshole to some people, so be it. The medicine may taste terrible, but it's good for you.
Any idiot with a computer can make a site that's good enough for a multinational service provider these days. There's no longer a reason to devalue your business with a broken front door and an empty showroom.
Cheers,
Kennith
Good luck! I hit him up a few times recently for my Defender build. I even tried to give him a deposit to get in line. He said that he can't find any quality fabricators to work for him(not surprising with his standards), and maybe late summer he'd be back to making bumpers.
Rovertym, Safaarigard, Rockware . . . all those names used to be good but most are fading from the Rover scene, as best I can tell
We used to have quite a few suppliers but the Land Rover off-road community has really thinned out, in terms of DIY hard core off roaders. Most of the off-road trucks we build are for wealthy people who probably won't smash them up and want a custom bumper because they want something unique. As the market has shrunk and clients have moved upscale that is the direction things have gone.
You should be able to find a fabricator to make anything, but I'd expect to pay a few grand to get exactly what you want. That is our experience.
We used to have quite a few suppliers but the Land Rover off-road community has really thinned out, in terms of DIY hard core off roaders. Most of the off-road trucks we build are for wealthy people who probably won't smash them up and want a custom bumper because they want something unique. As the market has shrunk and clients have moved upscale that is the direction things have gone.
You should be able to find a fabricator to make anything, but I'd expect to pay a few grand to get exactly what you want. That is our experience.
Well, the cheap stuff sells quite well, but the cheap stuff is actually marketed effectively. Every bumper manufacturer that's been notable in the past two decades and didn't survive had the same problem: Terrible marketing.
If you sit around and wait for people to buy your stuff, very few will. Then you and those who replaced you go out of business, and everyone thinks the market is dead. It's not actually dead, but it is indeed on life support. The community on the whole is lazy and complacent. Countless Rovers are used off-pavement regularly, and they're all equipped largely the same way unless an owner got creative himself.
A perpetual theme is someone accidentally getting the exposure on forums, and then becoming overwhelmed and failing to deliver. They'd never had orders like that before. They don't have enough presence (or sense) to grab a loan, so they need all the cash up front. They don't understand that a slow build-up is long-term financial security and training for increased volume. The big players have remained the same over the years for that very reason.
They're the ones that "get it".
At this point, I'm half-tempted to sort this out without charge for the next company that impresses me; but I'm not that charitable anymore.
Cheers,
Kennith
I'm thinking I want a lighter bumper than an ARB. The truck had a Safarigard bumper and a 9000lb warn winch. That shit was heavy. I'm running a fairly light spring so the trucks on a diet.
I think your right. Look good,recovery hardware on it. But lighter than ARB stuff. For sure lighter than this safarigard monstrosity. I believe if a Disco didn't have 600 lbs of winch and bumper hanging off the front of it, it wouldn't need the winch.
I get it. I'm getting rid of them to mount my RockStar Fab bumpers, which are lighter than most other bumpers.
That's the reason the front I'm going to have built has a hopeful limit of 85 pounds without the winch. You don't need 200 pounds of steel up there to support a winch and/or survive rocks and impacts in general. You simply need to put some thought into it, and occasionally alter material combinations. Cost to benefit considerations put a hard wall at about two grand, though, so you can't go too far.
People still need to be able to afford a winch and lights, after all.
Cheers,
Kennith
People still need to be able to afford a winch and lights, after all.
Cheers,
Kennith
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