Aftermarket April 2022

Above: Neil Kennett Neil, we worked literally alongside each other in the RMI press office for years. What do you remember most about those days? Oh, where to start? We used to joke that nobody ever leaves the motor industry, and here we both are 20 years and several kids later. I joined in early 2003. You were already the Press Officer and I was Website Editor. I also worked on Forecourt magazine and the fuel protests were huge news at the time. The poor petrol retailers took loads of stick, quite unfairly because they earnt very little from fuel sales. Imagine the outrage if the protestors had known what a gallon would cost today. There were a lot of strong opinions about Block Exemption, authorised repairer status and emissions too, so in some ways we’ve made incredible progress, and in other ways it’s the same old industry tensions. Then one day you left to go freelance… Yes, sorry about that. I completed my NCTJ journalism course by passing the 80-words-per-minute shorthand exam, admittedly at the second time of asking, and launched Featurebank in 2007, offering journalism and PR services. From the start the trade titles were brilliant. I got writing gigs with Aftermarket, among others, and ticked a few items off the bucket list – writing race reports for Autosport, interviewing legends like Sir Stirling Moss and covering a consumer court victory for Auto Express. The PR side picked up nicely too. The Mail on Sunday naming MyCarCheck its “No.1 cash-saving app” was an important early win, and I worked for Euro Car Parts for years, back when Sukhpal was in charge. I wrote all sorts for them – internal and external comms, ad copy –press releases about landmark moments like becoming part of LKQ and buying up all those Unipart sites. Those were big deals which made international headlines. I’d admired ECP 26 AFTERMARKET APRIL 2022 TECHNICAL/AFTERMARKET OF THE FUTURE www.aftermarketonline.net PAST, PRESENT AND CARS OF THE FUTURE Our Editor looks back and forwards with his old colleague, Neil Kennett, who is joining the mag’s roster of regular contributors