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FAI Automotive plc has evolved out of motor sport, with its attendant high standards of technical, logistical and administrative efficiency. Ian Walker, our founder was a semi-professional racing and rally driver from 1956 to 1962, when he retired from driving and formed Ian Walker Racing (IWR). This was a fully professional four-car race team, which campaigned all over Europe and North America with considerable success. Apart from two contracted drivers, the team was fortunate to have the services on an occasional basis, of such drivers as Jimmy Clark, Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart. When IWR was closed down in 1968, its assets and some of the personnel were integrated into Ian Walker Service – a garage business – which specialised in the sale and service of high performance cars, particularly Lotus. It also produced and marketed performance conversions, such as camshafts, cylinder heads, inlet and exhaust manifolds and eventually competition engines. In 1974 we commenced engine re-conditioning for road cars and consequently were regrinding road camshafts and, due to the cost of engine parts prevailing then, began sourcing outside of the franchised networks. As we built up stock holding and availability for ourselves, we saw a market opportunity to offer a range of engine parts to the engine re-conditioning industry. Commencing in 1976 the small range offered included re-profiled camshafts, followers, tappets, rocker shafts, oil pump repair kits, timing chains and core plugs. We started with an 8 part range consisting of a total of only 135 part numbers, and were operating out of a premises comprising of 2,250 square feet. We now operate out of a premises covering 110,000 square feet, our current range of products consists of over 25 product lines, 40,000 part numbers covering 100+ vehicle manufacturers and at any time, our average parts inventory totals over 5,000,000 items. Over the years we have made significant investments to the product ranges we have on offer. In 2015 our Gaskets and Head Bolts saw over 2,000 part numbers introduced, Steering and Suspension currently boasts over 5,000 part numbers, while our Timing Chain Kits offer the most comprehensive kits in terms of content but also car parc coverage found in the market today. We are also the sole UK authorised distributor of the industry leading Lucas Glow Plugs which consists of over 150 part numbers. We are continually making additions to all of our product ranges, while introducing whole new product lines like our new Sump Pans, Torsional Vibration Dampers and Oil Control Vavles.