Braking away

摘要

Specialist brakes company Alcon is aiming to move itself into the automotive mainstream. Alcon is synonymous with the manufacture and supply of high specification brakes and clutches for motorsport and high-performance road vehicles. Established in 1984 by engineer and sports car racer John Moore, it now employs more than 70 at its headquarters and manufacturing facility at Tamworth in the UK. The biggest feather in its cap is being a technical partner to the Honda Fl Racing Team, supplying patented brake callipers but it has also provided all the brake hardware to support Citroen's dominance of the World Rally Championship in recent years. It can also count the motorsport departments of Audi, BMW, Ford, Honda (Dome), Peugeot, Renault and Volkswagen as customers. In the US, it has been fitted on the championship winning cars in the Indy Racing League series from 2003 to the present day while in the closed world of Nascar, it has front running teams as customers. So, all in all, it is quite a success story for this relatively small company. It therefore makes it all the more intriguing that it has set its heart on breaking into the mainstream automotive sector.