Toad Hall Motorbooks

John Allen

Designer

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One of the most successful companies in this industry is SMTS, and its resilience is due mostly to Keith Williams, its co-founder.

Keith Williams was 18 when he finished school, and decided to take a year out before he went to university. He took a job at Caffyn’s in Horsham, then a local British Leyland dealership. It was there that he met Bryan Garfield Jones’s wife Jill, who was working on the accounts there.

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One of the most successful companies in this industry is SMTS, and its resilience is due mostly to Keith Williams, its co-founder.

Keith Williams was 18 when he finished school, and decided to take a year out before he went to university. He took a job at Caffyn’s in Horsham, then a local British Leyland dealership. It was there that he met Bryan Garfield Jones’s wife Jill, who was working on the accounts there.

Keith had made models of cars, and worked in a shop before, so he was invited to build up models for Bryan’s range, Motorkits. After he graduated, he was still making the Motorkits, and in 1976, Bryan recommended that he visit Mike Stephens, who at the time was running Western Models at the Watermill, near Redhill.

Keith was employee number 8, and commenced work on a 3 days per week basis building models. By this time Western Models had already released their Mercedes 540K roadster. Mike soon realised that Keith could draw too, so he began drawing designs as well. Whilst at Western he met John Allen, who was to be a strong influence in his life. Keith became a full-time employee, and at the time they had a contract to supply Minichamps, who were then producing ranges known as Plumbies, Metal 43, Metal 24 and Metal 87. Minichamps have come a long way since those days, and they have created a museum in Aachen to record their long history in model cars.

Western was expanding fast, and achieved approximately 60% of Minichamps’ business. However, with casting facilities developing in China, Minichamps decided to move into the diecast model car field, and pulled the plug on a lucrative and critical contract with Western.  By 1983, Keith and John were spending their lunch hours, eating their sandwiches, and planning how they might one day move out and start their own business. They made their decision, left Western and pursued their independent careers together. The departure of Keith and John from Western came at a bad time, but it did enable Mike Stephens to plan a down-sizing of the company.

Keith fondly remembers visiting Formula 1 teams and meeting Patrick Head and Gordon Murray in the course of research for models. At this time he commissioned Ian Pickering and Richard Stokes to make patterns for him. Whilst Keith and John were the two enthusiasts getting together, they were soon joined by Steve Overy, who was a catalyst in helping SMTS to obtain suitable premises.

The Arrows A6 was their first model and has happy memories for Keith as through it, he made the connection with Jackie Oliver. He used to make 1:4 scale presentation models of Jackie’s F1 cars sign written in potential sponsors colours. Jackie was married to the lovely Lulu, who was a dancer with the Top of the Pops dance group Legs and Co at the time. The jobs were always hush, hush, and rush, rush, and Jackie was always flying all over the place trying to raise money, so Lulu would come to Keith’s place to pick up the models.

 Ian Pickering made the pattern, but the rest of the construction was in house. Keith commissioned Kaylee Transfers to do the decals, from artwork drawn by Keith.

When he introduced the Arrows A6, SMTS sold about a dozen kits to one person. They speculated who would want 12 kits of the same car? The answer was that the ‘ultimate’ 1:43 race car collector Colin Frazer, later to become a good friend and the founder of Formula Models. The Arrows sold well, with 500 units being distributed to retailers who had agreed to take the new SMTS models. 

Steve Overy arranged to move the factory to a unit in Hastings in 1986, but soon afterwards he left, leaving Keith and John as the two partners, as it remains to this day. Keith took on the business and development side, whilst John was the mould maker.  Keith would commission a pattern, choosing the pattern maker according to the brief and design he was planning to achieve, and was therefore the ‘front of house’ man. John has been content to be the ‘back office’ supremo.

Around this time, Keith recalls, one of his first commissions was a 1:43 Mirov II Russian supercar. Part of a world wide promotion by Norwich Union, it was intended that 200 certificated models be released, but Keith recalls only 50 or so being cast and built. The promotion began on 16 June 1989 and was aired in London and Norwich TV regions. It related to an imaginary Russian sports Turbo of the future which represented the kind of investment opportunity people could one day share through a Norwich Union  savings and investment plan. Just two real cars were made, and the advertisement had a voice over from Ludovic Kennedy. One car remains in road worthy condition in private ownership.

In the late 1980s Henk van Asten, an experienced Dutch collector, asked Keith to produce a range of 1950s American cars, and from this beginning, Henk built up the range known as Conquest and Madison models, which included a number of British cars. Much later, Henk retired, and sold the patterns to American retailer, Dave (Buz) Kirkel, on the understanding that SMTS would continue the manufacture. Soon after, Buz also bought Western’s US range of models when Mike Stephens retired. The deal included the patterns, some of which were then passed to SMTS. Keith and his team are now upgrading these patterns, and awaiting more from the same source.

In due course they outgrew their small factory unit, and bought a piece of land nearby, built a purpose built factory on it in 1992. At this point and in the early 1990s, there were 32 employees working with SMTS, delivering a consistent quality standard in all their models.

However, overhead costs were high, and with the arrival of more detailed diecast models, it was clear that the market was declining.  As a means of diversifying, in 2000, Keith Edney, proprietor of RAE Models, found a buyer near Heathrow who wanted a range of aircraft, and Skylines were born. SMTS models have followed a number of thematic ranges, known as “The Racing Line”, “Those Classic Lines” and “Skyline”.

Soon after this, Keith had a visitor to the factory, Bruce Rolston, one of the world’s foremost collectors of earth moving equipment, who had recently retired to Hastings. He was seeking some casting work to fill the remaining gaps in his collection. This enquiry led to the commissioning of some fully built models from SMTS, which became the launch of the Black Rat Mining Company, a range to meet the needs of this specialist market. As the Skylines aeroplane range was overtaken by Chinese made diecasts of the same aircraft, SMTS switched to other lines and markets. The American customer base is particularly strong at present. This exemplifies the versatility of SMTS in responding to customer needs in many fields.

Over the years customers have sought 00 gauge locomotive bodies from Keith, others have ordered dolls house furniture and staircases, which still generate a twice yearly order. Wargaming tanks and other military vehicles have also featured in their portfolio. SMTS undertake the casting for the K&R Replicas range, developed by John and Stephen Roff.

Keith developed and introduced a new range of large scale motorcycles, in conjunction with David Baulch, but after a few hundred had been sold, the arrival of the Minichamps similar range rendered this venture unviable.

Both Keith and his partner John Allen are beginning to consider the future of SMTS, given the declining market, but it appears that the opportunistic approach to their work is continuing to draw out new customers. A small range of fantasy cars for Bridgestone Tyres has been a recent commission.

With a number of key customers relying on the range of skills that SMTS has to offer, let’s hope they will have been able to ride the recession and continue to provide the industry with their valuable range of services.

Subject ID: 82833

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Subject ID: 82833