Swindon engineering firm celebrates 15 years in business

A Swindon engineering firm, born out of its owner’s love of motor racing, is celebrating its 15th anniversary.

Ludlow Engineering, based in West Swindon, was set up in 2007 by engineer Dan Ludlow.

Dan is a self-confessed motor racing enthusiast, and in his spare time, enjoys racing at club level across the UK.

Dan began manufacturing performance racing car parts in his garage at home for his own race car, and soon progressed to supplying other race teams with parts for their cars.

He said: “I made the parts for myself and then started making them for other people to help finance my racing.

“These were parts I developed on my race car, things like braking and suspension components which I sold to fellow racers in the paddocks.”

Business was said to have become so brisk for Dan, that he moved out of his garage at home into a unit on Cheney Manor industrial estate. He then gave up his day job, transitioning to business owner.

Now 15 years on, Ludlow Engineering is a Swindon success story, although the firm no longer manufactures parts for racing cars.

Its core business is repairing or replacing mechanical parts when equipment breaks down, and it has clients across sectors as diverse as water, automotive, food processing, packaging, pharmaceutical, and building products production.

Ludlow Engineering covers everything from the repair of a worn out bearing journal or housing to the complete manufacture of bespoke or obsolete parts, and also runs an emergency repair engineering service, to help minimise downtime and disruption.

The company is based in its own premises in Westmead, and six years ago took on apprentice James Barnett, who is now a fully qualified engineer. Dan plans to take on another apprentice.

Dan added: “I never envisaged that a business I started, to help with a hobby, would become so successful; it’s worked out very well indeed. I love running my own business and enjoy the opportunity of meeting and interacting with so many different people.

“My next step is to look for another apprentice. Taking James on worked out brilliantly. He is just superb at the job, and gets on very well with the customers, so I hope we can do that again.”

To mark the anniversary, Ludlow Engineering has just launched a new website.

For more details, individuals can visit https://www.ludlowengineering.com/ or email dan@ludlowengineering.com.