Zero to 600 in two years.

Billy Solmes knows the value of good press.

Until two years ago when an American racing magazine rated his North Bay fibreglass company as producing the best motorcycle racing body money can buy, Armour Bodies Inc. was a struggling composites firm treading water.

Today, the 11-employee company claims Yamaha Canada, Kawasaki Canada and Suzuki Canada among their customers. They use the light-weight product for their corporate super-bike teams as well as scores of competitive racers across North America.

Yet Solmes, the 37-year old dynamo president of the company remains shy about having his picture taken, preferring to cast the credit and the spotlight to his employees. He's even more reluctant to put his name as company president on his business card.

"We're all Armour Body."

Sporting a shaved head with a get-down-to-business attitude, Solmes always held a never-wavering faith to produce a high-end racing body crafted by people who understood the passion of motorcycle enthusiasts. That belief stems from the company's modest start, and fuels it still.

"I have no intention of making the second-best product in North America," declares Solmes.

New digs

Situated in a nondescript building next to a gravel pit at the end of an airport runway, the company moved into this new 6,000-square foot space building on Carmichael Drive just last March, thanks to a fresh influx of cash from Montreal investor, Richard Italia.

Strolling through his shop, production is a hand-balmed process from start to finish, from making the master molds to the end product.

Masked workers laminate bodies with paint brushes and lay in sheets of Kevlar by hand. The air is free of airborne particulate thanks to dust control equipment such as the down draft tables that suck sediment away.

"It's a very slow and deliberate process that is very controlled, not so much by conscious effort but by design," says Solmes. "There's no automated process whatsoever. There's a ton of individuality incorporated into what we do and these guys are incredible in what they do."

The "human factor" plays a huge role for Solmes in wanting to build genuine relationships with customers and his employees.

As a competitive street-bike racer who races nationally about a dozen times a year, Solmes says he and racers are on the same page compared to their more established U.S. race body competitors whose roots originate in other industries.

"We came from a red neck background, knowing nothing," says Solmes.

Dubious beginnings

He was steered into the business six years ago when he was "wang-dangled" by a deadbeat business partner.

While his associate made the bodies, Solmes, who also runs a spare parts salvage yard, handed the sales and paid most of the bills.

Admittedly naive then about business matters, Solmes really didn't pay much attention to their sagging fortunes.

Then one day, Solmes arrived at their hole-in-the-wall North Bay shop to find his pick-up truck gone and most of the molds and equipment cleaned out. His partner skipped town leaving him with a mountain of back orders from angry customers who were promised body work.

"I touched base with every one. That was one of the hardest things I've ever done ... going into work in the morning and sucking it up to phone these (customers) and tell them I don't have your product or your money."

Some were understanding and he eventually compensated them. Others went back to their credit card companies who came after Solmes and began withdrawing money from his bank account.

He dug himself out of his abyss through his salvage business while teaching himself the craft of making fibreglass bodies.

Disheartened but still believing in the product, he convinced two friends, Bob Porter and Glenn Reynolds, to invest $2,200 each in exchange for a one-third ownership share of the business.

That first year in 2000, they manufactured and "basically gave away" five sets, worth about $500 a piece, to a Yamaha Canada's "B" racing team partly as a public relations ploy.

The next year they boosted production to 50. Eventually, Roadracing World magazine came calling. They requested a racing body for a comparison test with seven North American body work companies.

"I always knew we were on some groundbreaking stuff," says Solmes. "Not earth-shattering but enough to get a market share."

Already well-known for producing quality work, they finished in the top-three in categories of finish, fit, flexibility, weight and endurance in impact and abrasion testing.

As soon as the Feb. 2003 issue hit the streets, the phone "went berzerk" with orders.

It hasn't stopped.

The company went from selling two sets per month to two and three sets a day over the next three months. This year, Solmes estimates they'll produce more than 600 units.

But their hand-generated process will not change in favour of mass production, he says.

"We're going to make whatever we can in any given day."

www.armourbodies.ca

By IAN ROSS

Northern Ontario Business