Shropshire Magazine

John Hall, owner of Write Here! Kite Now! which is stocking the climbing car; Vernon Kerswell; and Phil Northwood, Vernon’s business backer.

Christmas last year was fantastic for Shropshire student Vernon Kerswell – and this festive season looks like being even better, he tells Neil Thomas

Vernon Kerswell is in the toy business, which is not a bad line to be in at this time of year. The latest state-of-the art toys, too.

In 2007 he set up Extreme Fliers and unleashed his first product on the public – a remote-controlled toy flying helicopter which became a Christmas bestseller.

Now he is following it up with his latest must-have gadget – the Micro Wall Climbing Car. It is an ingenious remote-controlled car that can be driven up walls – and even upside down across the ceiling.

The cars retail at £29.95 and Vernon has secured a deal with John Hall, of Write Here! Kite Now! toy store in High Street, Shrewsbury, to stock them.

“I have taken 50 to begin with, with another 250 to follow. I think they are superb, real fun,” says John.

The gadget sits alongside three other exciting new products for Christmas 2008, including a new improved helicopter in the form of a military apache called Desert Apache, a remote-controlled wasp called Terror Wasp, and a twin-rotor Chinook. 

Vernon with his Micro Wall Climbing Car.

Last year Vernon sold nearly 2,000 of his helicopters across the country in shops and via the company’s website (www.extremefliers.co.uk) with minimal marketing and promotion. It led to him winning Manchester University’s Venture Out business ideas competition.

To source last year’s range, the 20-year-old, whose family home is at Picklescott, near Church Stretton, took a crash course in Mandarin and then used his £1,500 overdraft to fly to the Far East and comb industrial China for gadgets to market in the UK.

Building on his experience, Vernon has now been permitted to use his industrial placement year to work for Extreme Fliers, a registered limited company. 

Over the summer he returned to China for two months, building relationships and developing a prototype of the anti-gravity car.

To help retailers boost sales on the shop floor, Vernon has developed a unique fully customisable display unit with LCD screen which is provided free, delivering promotional multimedia video content that can be streamed to all shops from anywhere in the world using the internet.

He says: “Extreme Fliers specialises in the professional design, development, manufacture, import and retail of toys.

“We’re not just an import business – in China we have established a team of manufacturers, product developers, electrical engineers, graphic designers and aerodynamic engineers employed by the company.

“This means we can make innovative new designs through continuous development, to create cool, durable, longer-lasting toys.”

Vernon says he has been careful to ensure his products maintain the highest standards.

Safety

“There have been stories in the press recently about toys made in China failing to meet UK safety standards. We put a massive emphasis on high-quality material sourcing, staff training according to ISO9001, guidelines and industry standards. I spent a number of weeks in ‘Toy City’, a remote area of China with over 4,000 factories, slept in the factory for several nights and, from this, established good relationships with reputable manufacturers and monitored quality control. Now the products are ready for everyone to enjoy.

“You can’t just walk into China and do business. It’s been a rollercoaster ride to establish partners, learn the language to communicate, establish the right people and develop the products. Trust and friendship, which they refer to as ‘Guanxi’, is massively important. 

“We source from around 20 of the most reputable factories to work with and independently monitor quality control throughout the whole production process with our own people.”

Vernon has harboured the idea of taking his idea onto BBC’s Dragons’ Den show in a bid to persuade one of the programme’s star investors to buy a slice of Extreme Fliers.

In the meantime, though, he has acquired a local ‘business angel’ in the shape of Phil Northwood. 

He says: “I have known Vernon about four years as he went to college with my son and they both played musical instruments. He is obviously a guy with a lot of ideas and I think he is on to something unique.”

He might have had a sheltered upbringing as one of a family of eight from a rural Shropshire hamlet but Vernon Kerswell, it seems, appears on the way to achieving his dream of being the next Richard Branson.