When I started the Unipower GT Owners Club back in 1972, there was really no need to know the kind of statistics that have become the normal these days, in order to determine how well the Club was known and what its following was. The Club was just made up of a group of owners, who became Members of the Club by virtue of owning a Unipower GT, mostly at that time from the South of England where most of the UK cars were located, as well as a few European owners who would make the trip over to the regular monthly gathering on the green outside the Royal Oak pub in Brockham, Surrey.
Soon afterwards, the Club expanded its activities and started attending the National Classic Car Shows where two or three cars were presented at the annual Show venues around England, with many Members helping out on our Stands.
Later during the 1980's the popularity of the cars attracted buyers from overseas with many finding their way to Japan, such that these monthly gatherings became less frequent as those who could attend with cars diminished. Never the less, the Club still continued its Classic Car Show attendance as a focal point of meeting up with its Members.
The Club continued over the years to provide the ownership community with the means to share experiences with other Members and to benefit from other assets such as parts availability and most importantly, in-depth knowledge of the cars inner workings and history. Access to the original factory records and body moulds, some jigs and a wealth of past experience has enabled the restoration of many cars over the years, which otherwise would have been lost.
It is testament in some way to the Club's activities, that 70% of the cars produced are still known to the Club with 55% of current ownership of known cars, being Members of the Club. There are also a number Members who are past owners or who were intimately involved in the cars production, as well as Ernie Unger who started the concept of the Unipower GT project, and whom the Club is honoured to have as its Patron.
As the years past, and the time honoured exchange of Letters between the Club's Members turned to E-mails, the ease by which information and knowledge could be shared became more comprehensive with the ability to exchange pictures and videos more easily. It soon became apparent that just being known as the Owners Club was not enough and the need to embrace the Internet, so as to become more accessible, was needed. To that end back in December 2019, the Club launched its website as the Unipower GT Owners Club & Register, bringing together its previous nomenclature, and which to be totally honest, was a little bit 'clunky' due to being its first effort at website design and getting used to the emerging features available on the developer platform of Wix.com, our web hosting platform. Gradually this improved dramatically with a total revamp of its 'look and feel' in early 2020.
With this investment, a major step forward both in terms of content and its dedicated Members Area, the Club's ability to reach beyond the Membership was enhanced. We now had the ability to gather statistics on visitors, with a visibility into what content was seen as most important to them, in addition to a whole new insight into patterns of behaviour never previously possible. It was a surprise to see just where in the World our visitors come from and to be able to measure the expansion of the Unipower GT Club's awareness across the Globe. In addition to its website, the Club established a presence on both Facebook and Instagram to cover some of the other social media platforms.
To date we have had over 34,000 visitors to the Club's website, the vast majority coming from the UK followed by the European countries, however the awareness of the marque has spread beyond to countries that we could never have imagined for such a rare marque and one for which only 73 were produced. This fact is in some way supported by the List held by the Club of those who want to purchase a Unipower GT, as and when one becomes available, indeed the Cars for Sale page is often the second most popular page on the website.
So in conclusion, the Club is still a Club of like minded people and I would like to thank all the Club's Members from all over and the many many others, for supporting the marque and for providing both experiences and content for the Club's news over the years.
GH