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 Willingham's History
Welcome to our brief history of Willingham Car Spares.
Dave and Pat Willingham have built a large, successful, and well known vehicle dismantling business with over 30 years of hard work and professionalism, but it wasn't always that way ...
The First Vehicle
Dave Willingham was an agricultural engineer doing mobile repairs for local farmers. To settle an outstanding account Dave accepted an old car in exchange. Some parts were sold from the vehicle which amounted to a weeks wages, and hence Willingham Car Spares was born.
Expanding From The Garden
One year later Dave employed his first worker, and eventually there wasn't enough room in the garden to store everything - besides Pat wanted her garden back (she eventually got it all to herself again 25 years later). Dave and Pat bought the house next door which allowed them to expand the storage and working area for Willingham Car Spares. A few years passed and the third house in the row became available, so again Willingham's bought the house and expanded. Trade was picking up and yet more staff were added to the growing family business. House number four was the final 'sideways' expansion for Willingham's. Now comprising 1, 2, 3 and 4 Tower House Lane and all the land from each house, the yard was fuller than ever with cars and spares.
Lots of Lorries
Throughout the 1980's and 1990's a range of vehicles were added to the Willingham's fleet. The first major purchase was a brand new Bedford flatbed recovery truck with custom body and TICO Hiab crane gear. Much to the relief of our recovery unit the new crane became and invaluable tool, especially useful when we were asked to collect a vehicle that was lying at the bottom of a 150 foot cliff face near Scarborough (we made the front page of the local newspaper with that job). We also added two Ford Cargo trucks, capable of carrying three vehicles each, for local vehicle collections and later purchased a five-car transporter to collect vehicles for a series of contracts we'd secured with major insurance companies.
Yet More Land
The expansion of Willingham's was still ongoing and in the early 1980's we added yet more land to the yard, buying a couple of acre's behind the four houses.
'Starship' Counter
In 1985 a fellow dismantler showed Dave a computer system that he thought would be great for Willingham's. Based on a Tandy TRS computer with 8" disc drives, and a 8MB hard drive that was bigger and heavier than the computer itself, it had a simple database system that allowed us to catalogue all our vehicles with a unique 'Stock' number and build our own parts system. It is still in use at Willingham's today, although on a much more powerful machine with updated software and capabilities. Once we'd got to grips with the computer we added a terminal to our parts counter and began transferring all the hand-written part stock records. Once transferred we added a few more terminals to our sales counter and a customer commented that our stores counter was "like the deck of the Starship Enterprise".
What? ... More Land?
Yes, we did it again in the late 1980's. We bought a small building and its land at the end of our existing yard that was previously owned by the Shorts Timber Company. Our 'Shorts' shed is now used to repair and maintain our own fleet of vehicles, and to store the paperwork and records for our mechanic and drivers.
The Big Sheds
We call them the 'Big Sheds' because that's exactly what they are. Previously they'd been used to store timber and when the company moved out we got the chance to add them to our yard. In 1992 we acquired the two sheds and the land surrounding them, completing our expansion and squaring-off the land we already owned into 6 acres. I think we've stopped buying land now (finally) and we're working on making the most of the area we already have to organise our vehicle and spares storage systems to be efficient and effective.
The Web
In 1995 we got on-line and produced our very first web page (just the one page) and started to work on using the world wide web to help us expand further, and guess what ... it didn't involve buying any land!. 1996 saw the re-launch of our web site with a variety of pages and a new 'Part Request' form that proved so popular we eventually decided to go the whole-hog and get our own domain name. In April 2000 we gave our web site a facelift and re-launched it from the new wcsauto.com web-space with a host of additional features that people had asked us to include.
Networking
We upgraded our computer network in 1999 and now boast a range of Windows based Servers and PC's linked in to our master Unix server.
Web Site Update (No.3)
In 2003 we decided to give our much used web site another facelift. Using visitor feedback and improved site management software we re-wrote the entire site from scratch. We've made the navigation easier and created a whole new 'look'. We've also updated all the database and form processing software, and made it easier and quicker to contact us. We also took the opportunity to upgrade our popular salvage section, adding an SQL database and increased size images. We hope you enjoy using the new site and look forward to your continued support and feedback.
The Future ...
Well, who knows, but the role of the dismantler has changed dramatically over the 30+ years we've been in business and is set to change in the near future with the impact of the European 'End of Life' Directive. Whatever the future holds, you can guarantee we'll be flexible and open to change and continue to do the best we can to help our customers.
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