Expert Advice
Quality Parts
Front Runner was founded in the early 1990’s in South Africa, after the founders had shared an overland trip through Botswana. South Africa had long been a popular and well-known safari and adventure travel destination, but many of the domestic products had traditionally been low-quality and not durable enough for the southern-African bush. Sitting around a campfire after a hard day on the trails, the founders vowed to change this forever.
Initially, the company focused on designing durable roof racks and fitting kits for models such as Land Rover, Nissan Patrol, Mitsubishi Pajero (sold as the Shogun in the UK), Mercedes G-Class and the emerging pickup trucks which were becoming a more common sight on South African roads. Every product was carefully designed and tested in-house by the management team, their friends and families.
Whilst a roof rack might seem like a simple product to design and build, there are some important constraints to take into account. Vehicle manufacturers sometimes include mounting points or channels into their designs, but these are often intended for the mounting of cosmetic roof bars or light duty roof racks; these mounting systems are not always suitable for mounting larger upgrades or for supporting heavy weights. Moreover, adventure and leisure travellers tend to go off-road with their roof racks laden with gear, fuel, water, spare wheels and all sorts of other equipment and accessories.
The 1990’s saw a significant growth in demand for one of the largest and heaviest 4WD upgrades – the roof top tent. Many earlier tents would weight 100kg – often increasing to 250kg or more with occupants and gear loaded inside the tent. Attaching such a heavy load to a 4×4 or pickup is complicated enough, but when taking into account the fact that these vehicles were often being driven down punishing trails at high speeds, the engineering needed to be top-notch for the racks and tents to survive the journey.
Front Runner invested heavily in state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, developing their ever increasing line-up of Slimline and Slimline II roof racks. Each rack was machined from high-grade aluminium, for a winning combination of lightness and durability. In fact, Front Runner were so proud of their achievements that they offered a limited lifetime warranty on many products.
A high quality roof rack needs high quality accessories, and Front Runner have led the world market by developing literally hundreds of upgrades – from awnings to storage solutions, water tanks, innovative attachment kits, camping gear, even their own range of roof tents.
Sold across the globe now for many years, Front Runner quality standards are as stringent as ever and a huge state of the art manufacturing plant near Johannesburg, South Africa, ensures that quality and innovation go hand in hand with new products being designed and developed constantly. Front Runner products are favoured by rescue organisations, charities, the UN, overland explorers and everyday users.
4×4 Works are proud to be one of the UK’s largest and best known Front Runner retailers, with the entire product range available to order. We have extensive knowledge of the range and we are here to help you find the right Front Runner product for your needs, be it for work or adventure.
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