ANDY STACEY

ANDY STACEY Creative Brand Manager

Arkonik Brand creator and guardian. Andy joined the Defender specialists five years ago after 20 years agency experience, whereby he gained an enviable portfolio working with brands such as Sony, National Trust and Honda. A petrolhead at heart, Andy loves all genres of automobiles from spectating at grass roots motorsport level to marvelling over automotive exotica on the hallowed turf of Pebble Beach.

2021 has started in much the same way as 2020 began…super busy! Our focus back then in the run-up to lockdown one was centered around our relaunch back into the UK market. Using our signature LS-engined build ‘UJO’ we were honoured to attend the Autosport show at the NEC as guests of TAROX ® brakes. The rarity of UJO, in amongst a sea of supercars and motorsport thoroughbreds guaranteed we made the headlines and the stand drew admirers from both those in the know and the curious.

An extensive program of events was planned for the remainder of the year, including the Festival of Speed but as we all know now the shape of 2020 took a very different direction to the one we had planned for. However, in amongst lockdowns we did manage to take UJO out on track and at the hands of Abbie Eaton, UJO was given a proper shakedown and was the perfect opportunity for some intensive R&D which was fed into our SVO builds.

Fast forward to April 2021 and the order book is full, enquiries are strong and production is in full swing. Both at our HQ in Somerset and our Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division in Charleston, South Carolina.

With more and more clients wanting the classic look of Defender mated to a modern, powerful engine and drivetrain, our Charleston branch is full to capacity converting our heritage Defenders into raucous street ‘sleepers’.

With International travel on hold, our N.American hub has also become an essential gateway for our clients to receive their personal handovers. Some, have even chosen to combine the flight with a road trip; electing to drive their newly acquired icon home.

With the imminent launch of our merchandise range, we’re very busy creating the marketing material which will offer Arkonik ownership to a completely different audience and an exciting way to increase our brand awareness globally.

Behind the scenes we continue to work very closely with Del at b500 and Etienne Salomé to finalise the specification of the B500X Arkonik Etienne special Defender 90 project. Watch these pages as the build progresses and be sure to check our social media channels for regular updates on this very limited edition Defender.

With Winter firmly behind us and a brighter year on the horizon, we’re celebrating the advent of spring and embracing 2021 by giving a huge $20k off some seasonal themed builds in our latest promotion, full details can be found on our website.

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