Pelican Bus and Coach South of England Sales Manager Phil Hodgson retired at the end of September, bringing down the curtain on a career that included introducing the Yutong brand to the UK and sealing a deal to supply the first battery-electric coach to be sold here.
Mr Hodgson began his working life in 1960 as an apprentice with bus operator Hants and Dorset in Southampton. That led to a long spell in HGV engineering with various businesses before an initial retirement, but he then quickly formed his own interests in the coach and bus field.
“I came across Turkish manufacturer BMC and set up BMC Bus and Coach for the south of England,” he recalls. That opened doors and led to a meeting with Richard Crump, now Managing Director of Pelican Bus and Coach. Such a coming together went on to have what Mr Crump says were “very significant consequences.”
Pelican initially became a BMC truck dealer before taking on the bus and coach importer position in 2012, although BMC exited the market later that year. Returning to square one, Mr Hodgson then recalled an earlier meeting with Yutong and suggested that Pelican should approach the Chinese giant to see if it would be interested in entering the UK.
After an initial visit in November 2012, a deal was struck in 2013 and Mr Hodgson joined Pelican. He has “not looked back since.”
Mr Hodgson managed a sales territory broadly covering south of the River Thames. With Pelican having delivered its first Yutong TC12 coach in 2014, five years later Mr Hodgson completed the first UK deal for the TCe12 battery-electric coach – with Westway Coach Services – and he has sold a good number more since then.
More recently he complemented core diesel coach sales along with deals for the first privately operated U11DD battery-electric double-decker buses, for Westway and Airsym.
Mr Hodgson believes that the battery-electric proposition will in time account for most coach sales, noting how experience with SME buyers has shown that operating costs are greatly reduced compared to diesel.
On his contribution to Yutong in the UK and Pelican, Mr Hodgson says he is “very proud” of how both businesses have progressed.
“In less than a decade we have introduced a new brand into the highly competitive UK market. Yutong’s development here would never have gone as well were it not for Pelican,” he notes, pointing to Pelican’s ongoing investment in aftersales support.
In thanking Mr Hodgson for his contribution to Pelican and Yutong, Mr Crump says: “Phil is unique in every way. His industry and customer knowledge is huge and he is the consummate professional. I shall never forget the day he rang me to suggest we approach Yutong – a name that I had never heard of at the time!
“Every customer views Phil as a personal friend rather than a supplier representative, and he always has theirs and Pelican’s best interests at heart. I shall miss him greatly, but I wish him well.”
Pelican expects to announce Mr Hodgson’s successor over the coming months.
