12/16/2020

 

I grew up in a small town of 1,400 people in a family business that my dad ran for 49 years until he passed away in 1998, my mom and brother still run the business today.  It started out as a welding shop and repair shop for semi trucks and dump trucks, a neat place for a boy to grow up.  It is now a large truck parts business that sells all over the U.S. and Canada.

 

I have been restoring cars since I was 12 years old (I’m 53 now).  The first car I painted was a 1969 Chevelle, at age 12, and of course it turned out terrible because I didn’t know what I was doing.  My dad loved it because his boy had done it and that dumb car hung around for a decade before it was wrecked and went away, boy was I happy! 

 

When I was 17 I was hired by a local body shop and it was there that I really picked up the “tricks of the trade”.  From there I moved to another larger body shop and worked my way up to the manager.  After that in 1991 I went into the antique auto restoration for myself.  By then I was doing nice show cars and even got a couple of them in magazines.  I did that full time until 2001 when I took a full time job in the traffic signal business, specifically building solar powered traffic signals for a friend of mine that had been in business since 1985 and wanted to move in a new direction. 

 

After taking the traffic signal job I then moved to restoring cars part time instead of full time, which I still do today.  In 2005 I became V.P. of the traffic signal business and stayed there for 11-1/2 years until February 2013 when I accepted a General Manager’s position for another company that does heavy metal fabrication of all sorts and makes a lot of fixtures for John Deere.  A year later, in 2014 I started a new company with 2 partners manufacturing solar powered camera trailers for security and monitoring of construction sites and still do that today.  You can see that company at www.crossroadsmfg.com

 

While in the full time restoration business in the 1990’s I met Jack Drews (the late “Uncle Jack”).  He lived about 12 miles from me, we attended the same church and he wanted to know if I would restore the body on his TR4 race car.  I did his first TR4 and met Joe Alexander while working for Jack.  I did Joe’s TR3 twice, the second time after it was totaled out in an accident and in 2013 I restored the body of his TR4 race car and also worked on parts of his Ambro.

 

Now, to the panels!  It has been a dream of mine since about 2003 to produce my own body panels.  While working on Jack and Joe’s cars and hanging around many other Triumph enthusiasts I learned that there was a demand for certain repair panels for Triumphs.  I built my first lower front fender repair panel in 2010.  It didn’t take long to learn that I did not have the proper machines to make them efficiently so that I could make them economically.  I showed it to Joe and he thought it was great but I couldn’t afford to make them as it took way too many hours to produce just one.  I had a good product but a process that would break the bank in short order.

 

After about 2 years of accumulating machinery and equipment (and learning along the way) I finally have a winning formula.  I started producing panels in October 2012 and have had a lot of support from Joe Alexander.  I sell the panels on my website and through various distributors like Moss Motors, Rimmer Bros., TRF, Victoria British, A.R.E. and more.  Click on the Distributors button to place an order from your favorite distributor!

 

My goal is to produce excellent quality, exact replacement body panels.  I have been doing restoring long enough that I have seen a lot of reproduction panels that are about 80% made correctly and fall short on the last 20%. In addition, most of them are made to “fit over the top” of the existing body panel and not be an exact replacement.  It is easier to make them that way as you can take any existing body panel and use it as your “mold”.  When you do that it ends up being oversized instead of the exact same size.

 

My wife and I have been surprised at the success of the panels so far and hope that it keeps growing.  I am developing more panels for Triumphs and other cars as you read this.

 

Thank you for taking the time to visit my website.  If you have a need for a repair panel that is currently not available, please let me know if I may help you.  It may be worth some free product for you!!

 

Sincerely,
 

Keith Niehaus

N.R.P. - Niehaus Restoration Products

PO Box 215

Clarksville, IA 50619

319-415-1226