FerroForcia is a new brand, emerged from a great passion for Defenders, camping and outdoor life. Accompanied with a broad knowledge from a cnc machinery. FerroForcia is in fact a part of Van Haandel Metaal. The first FerroForcia product is a hinge set designed for Land Rover Defender side doors.
Dennis van Haandel, ceo at Van Haandel Metaal and initiator of FerroForcia tells his story below.
Passion for Defenders
‘’From the very first moment I drove a Defender, I fell in love with such a car. I just had my driver’s license and I was allowed to drive in my uncle’s Defender 110 once. A year later I drove with some friends to Slovenia for a vacation with that same Defender. Tents in the back, 4 guys in the car and just driving miles and miles. Little comfort and no air conditioning. No luxury at all with that car, I would even say very Spartan. It’s hefty and large, but that also gives its charm.
Everywhere we went we got really nice responses. Everyone who saw the Defender was really excited. When we arrived at the campsite it was immediately sociable, cosy, homy and fun. In Dutch we say ‘gezellig’. Such a Defender really attracts attention. Everyone came to have a look immediately. ‘What a nice car! Do you often drive around with it? What do you do with it? Good vibes immediately. It’s a real topic of conversation. There are only a few cars that bring that kind of ambience. I noticed that with a Defender, people are genuinely enthusiastic.
Defender 110
The appeal turned out to be so strong, that I bought my own Defender in the summer of 2018. A Defender 110, 300 TDI, 5-doors with 9 seats. And again thanks to my uncle, I became a member of the Land Rover Club Holland, LRCH. Great driving in the mud, making thematic rides, cruising across the country at the same time with fellow Defender-lovers.
But that’s just the start and fun part. Maintenance is key. There are so many parts from that car that have poor quality and sometimes even break. That’s why I quickly ended up at a garage, Barten4x4 in Veghel. Started with the most necessary repairs. After a while, the door hinges took their turn. My doors didn’t close properly anymore and they just didn’t fall off yet so to speak. Every time the car had been to the garage, the brown rust streaks crossed the doors. The original hinges were nicely oiled, but that didn’t look pretty.
Development case
That’s were the idea came to mind to produce these side-door hinges in-house at Van Haandel Metaal. I thought it was a nice learning project for employees to enhance their skills in CAD drawing and CAM programming. And so it was proceeded. One employee has drawn the hinges and another employee programmed and produced them.
Arise of FerroForcia
This slowly created the FerroForcia brand. Several more product ideas came up, like back door hinges. We came up with a brand name and had a logo designed for recognisability. In the meantime, the first hinges were mounted, with help from Barten4x4, on my orange-yellow Defender. Quite a striking car with that colour, covered with our logo. After extensive testing and improving, the hinge sets are now ready to refresh and functionally improve other Defenders with it!