THE Scottish market has been described as a key growth area for rapidly expanding start-up business StypeX, which is on a mission to add ‘bling’ to the nation’s construction sites.
The company, which provides specialist customisation and lighting solutions for construction, agricultural and forestry equipment, was launched last year by experienced plant sector duo Pat Bulcock and Claire Plant after they identified a demand from owner-operators to put their own individual stamp on machines, while at the same time making sites safer and more efficient.
StypeX, which has the strapline ‘Dare to be different’, is now the UK importer for products including MittX light bars and EMA excavator attachments, as well as a supplier of UK-manufactured LED lights from Lazer Lamps.
The firm will be exhibiting at ScotPlant 2024 after Pat described Scotland as a significant market for the company. StypeX already has a number of customers north of the border including KNC Groundworks in Aberdeenshire, which recently had MittX bars fitted to a new Liebherr 914 compact, and a client on the west coast which is having silver bars installed to a standout black Kobelco digger.
While ScotPlant 2024 will represent the company’s debut as an exhibitor, a distinctive black Liebherr 914 featuring a StypeX makeover in the form of MittX light bars was one of the highlights of the last exhibition, with visitors flocking to the Liebherr stand to check out the machine, belonging to S. Milne Contracting.
Pat, who spent years building up a loyal customer base in the tiltrotator industry representing brands such as engcon and Steelwrist, told Project Plant he has been astounded by the reaction to his new venture.
“To be honest, I was really nervous about walking back into a market that you’ve had 20 years of being committed to, walking back into it in a different guise,” he explained. “The reception has been outstanding. Everyone’s saying the branding is wicked; the whole concept is wicked. We want to have a go.”
After initially leaving the tiltrotator world, Pat revealed that he and Claire didn’t have a plan about what they wanted to do next. The idea to launch StypeX came from the number of enquiries they had fielded over the years from customers looking to add ‘bling’ to their equipment.
“We left the tiltrotator world and had nothing to go to,” Pat revealed. “Everybody seemed to think I had this amazing plan – I didn’t. To be honest with you, after six weeks of nothing to do we were climbing the walls because we’re that type of people; we’ve just got to be doing something.
“The idea was, what was the most common thing I got asked for apart from a tiltrotator? When people look at tiltrotators on the Internet, they instantly go to YouTube. And on YouTube it’s always a Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, or Dutch machine, and they’ve always got bars, chequer plates, different colours, tinted glass… bling! People would ring us up and ask where to get these things.
“That was the most common thing I got asked for. So, we decided to look at that market and see who does it. There was nobody in the UK. We said: ‘right, let’s go and find out where we get the products from’.
“We manufacture some of our own products locally within the UK, which is brilliant. We get lights from a company in Essex called Lazer Lamps, but we had to go to Sweden for the bars. We’re now UK importer for MittX light bars for diggers, tractors and loading shovels; we’re working with QPAX for light bars for vans and pick-ups; then we’ve got EMA for S-Type excavator attachments. I spent 20 years converting people to S-Type. That’s where the name of the company comes from. It would be very silly for me to walk away from that. We worked with EMA for years before Steelwrist acquired us. They’re very high-end buckets, not your run of the mill. All the excavator attachments are very much niche, proper stuff. If you want a bucket for life, that’s where you go.”
StypeX’s target market is operators who want to stand out in a crowd and who really understand and value their equipment. The business can advise on a range of solutions, from tinting glass to wrapping machines.
Project Plant caught up with StypeX at Plantworx, where the firm had sold four light bar systems within 24 hours of the event opening, demonstrating the ‘immense’ interest in the products.
For the time being, StypeX has the market to itself – and Pat is relaxed about the prospect of that ever changing.
“There’ll be somebody else comes along in time,” he said. “For the blingy side of life, we’re on our own, which is quite nice. It’s no different to what it was years ago when I started with engcon tiltrotators and there was only us doing it.”
