Building a Business with Iconic British Brands

Taking a look back at one of my articles previously published in Earthmovers Magazine and bringing it to life on the internet with alternative photos and video footage.

A family-owned Land Rover specialist garage, might be the last place one would expect to encounter a mini fleet of JCB machines, but that is exactly what we discovered during a visit to C.W. Feltham Ltd in the sleepy Somerset village of Kilve, near Bridgwater.

Colin Feltham the founder of this independent business has always had a passion for all things mechanical and in particular Land Rovers. Colin who is now 82 years old and still actively working most days, was called up for National Service back in 1958 and following his basic training in Honiton in Devon, he signed up to join the REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) a section of the army that really appealed to him, thanks to his interest in earthmoving machinery and all things mechanical.

While he was stationed at 10 Command Marchington in Staffordshire Colin spotted a 1949 Land Rover for sale. Colin takes up the story, I saw that this Land Rover was in an auction but unfortunately, I could not attend, and sadly it was sold to someone else. However, I’m not one to be put off so I tracked down the new owner and discovered that a vehicle was not for them, as I wanted it so badly, I was delighted to pay the full asking price and as such became the owner of my first ever Land Rover, which for the next 15 years was to become my reliable workhorse, and effectively the catalyst for the business that you see here today”.

Photo: Courtesy of C.W. Feltham

For many years to follow Colin worked on Land Rovers in his spare time more as an enthusiast than anything else, with the odd paid job taking place as and when.

Seeing a niche in the market for a dedicated and most importantly independent specialist repair service for the British built 4x4’s, in 1985 he decided to start the business initially operating from a one shed/workshop facility, which was followed by gaining planning permission to build a new dedicated workshop on the same site.

The business quickly established itself, thanks in part to word of mouth locally, focusing on Colin’s incredible knowledge and expertise on the product, and to cope with demand a number of staff were employed to help out.

In the mid 1990’s Colin was joined by his son and the current company Director Andrew Feltham, who had ambitious plans to further expand the business, with continued development work of the property and its facilities, most of which was and continues to be done by themselves “in house”.

In 1998 they paid a visit to Holt JCB in Bristol with a view to purchasing a JCB backhoe loader, which would join an existing but elderly International “Drott” tracked shovel which had previously been used to shape the land at the property, and was even used to dig out the first vehicle inspection pit in the workshop.

They met up with Holt’s Sales Manager Terry Bishop who suggested that he could offer them a 3-year-old 3CX on an M registration plate, which had previously been owned by Hewden Hire.

Andrew said, “After much deliberation, we decided to purchase the machine, they delivered it to us, and between it and the International, those machines helped to build and shape the premises you see here today, the 3CX in particular which we affectionately named the mobile “wheel barrow”, has been an amazing piece of equipment, digging trenches for the foundations and drainage and generally moving things around for us, it’s been so useful!”.

This machine was just the start of a long-standing relationship with the British built JCB products, which coincidently fit so well with the Iconic British Land Rover brand. The 3CX was joined 7-years ago by a telehandler in the form of a JCB 527-55, which as the business continued to expand, was brought in as a dedicated materials handler for the loading and unloading of delivery lorries, something that had previously been done by an old Ferguson tractor with forks, commenting on that decision Andrew said, “As the business grew and it wasn’t just me and my father anymore, as an employer there are a lot of health & safety rules and regulations to adhere too, and a duty of care to our employees too, so with some of the machinery getting old, we felt we needed to invest in a modern piece of kit to do the loading and unloading with, and as we like JCB and have a good relationship with Holt’s it was a natural route to go down”.

The 63kw (84hp) 527-55 has proven to be a phenomenal piece of kit around the property, capable of lifting 2.7-tonnes to its full lift height of 5.6m and 1.25tonnes at full forward reach the machine has become an extremely useful addition to the arsenal on site, in fact its arrival basically sounded the death knell for the venerable old Ferguson tractor and forks combo which was essentially parked up never to be used again!  

Members of staff were sent off for the necessary training on the correct operating procedures, and the all-wheel-drive and four-wheel-steer compact machine is kept busy on a variety of jobs, and as we witnessed on the day of Earthmovers site visit, has been known to pick up and move vehicles including Land Rover Discovery’s!

In a very similar scenario, the Feltham’s also had an old forward tipping dumper at their disposal on site, while it had served them well over the years, it had no roll bar or other modern-day features, as such Andrew felt it was appropriate to move on with the times and look at upgrading the said dumper.

Somewhat unsurprisingly they turned once more to JCB and 3 years ago invested in a 3-tonne class 3T FT forward tipping skip model, which Andrew describes as a revelation compared to the old machine they were running. “Its light years away from what we were running previously, with the powershift transmission and ease of operation, its just brilliant!” said Andrew.

It was then around 3 months ago that they expressed an interest in potentially upgrading the 3CX or looking at other options such as a tracked mini excavator.

The main reason behind that was that they have mill leat running through the place that silts up quite often, and a big river at the bottom which is quite fast flowing and we still have a lot more work to do around the place generally, including a big pad to create out the back to store vehicles on, and as Andrew puts it, “We never stop tinkering around the place, constantly working to improve our facility”.

Having spoken to Holt JCB about this, and on this occasion, they were invited down to the company’s premises in Exeter where they had an example of the new to the range 3.5-tonne conventional tail swing 36C-1 models available in stock from the factory. Andrew said, “We went down, had a drive and checked out the size and weight, which to be fair was never an issue as it will spend its life on our property, we have no need to haul it anywhere, and we liked what we saw and felt it would tick all the boxes for us, so a deal was done there and then!”.

The mini excavator will come into its own when cleaning out the leat and clearing the river of debris as unfortunately as is so often the case these days, this is never attended to by the local water authority.

Rather than trade in the 3CX it was decided to retain it as part of the fleet and Colin still loves to run the machine, but being rather “old school” is not so keen on a 360-degree excavator.

The latest edition to the CW Feltham fleet is powered by a Stage 5 emissions compliant three-cylinder Perkins diesel engine which produces a power output rating of 24.6hp (18.4kw).

This power pack is matched to a Bosch-Rexroth variable displacement, load-sensing, electro-proportional hydraulic pump system, which offers smooth and powerful operation, of which Andrew had high praise for, “Its just a brilliant machine to operate, so smooth and positive on the controls, I’ve not done a massive amount with it so far, just dug some foundations and a bit of general cleaning up, but it’s been a real pleasure to run and we are delighted with it in every aspect”.

It’s perhaps no coincidence that Andrew is a fan of JCB either, back in 1991 he was doing his A-levels at college, and he wrote to JCB to see if he could do some work experience up at the factory, which they kindly replied to and invited him up to the factory for a period of two weeks, as part of a project that Andrew was doing on hydraulics, where he made use of the wonderful library facility and in turn met some wonderful and talented individuals up there during his time, and its probably fair to say that his connection with the business has remained strong ever since, having seen first hand the work that goes into those products.

As part of their self-sufficient approach the team at CW Feltham have set up their own concrete batching plant using a vintage Petter powered concrete mixer and hopper arrangement, with the JCB excavators feeding in the materials for mixing, the finished concrete product is then dispatched into the dumper for pouring on whatever job they are doing at the time, be it a new floor or a foundation.

As part of the staff development programme some appointed members will attend a training course on the safe operating techniques on the new mini excavator, while regular servicing of the newest machines will be handled by Holt JCB going forward.

It was great to see this British business not only supporting the Land Rover brand as the focal point of their operation, but also flying the flag for British construction equipment manufacturing with their JCB products, and for me personally on the day, it was brilliant to see Colin still in the seat enjoying his pride and joy JCB at the age of 82.