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Stuff from Johannesburg

DRiV Motorparts, BestDrive Collaborate in Launch of Leading-Edge Brake and Shock Service Programs for South Africa

South Africa’s BestDrive Fitment Centres to Leverage Technical and Brand Support Benefits of FERODO® Brake Centre and Monroe® Expert Centre Platforms

Meadowview, South Africa, June 6, 2022. Tenneco, DRiV Motorparts and the BestDrive Tyre and related fitment centre network have collaborated in the launch of DRiV’s comprehensive FERODO® Brake Centre and Monroe® Expert Centre business programs in selected BestDrive locations throughout South Africa. The launch was announced at the official opening celebrations held at BestDrive Bryanston and BestDrive Centurion, Gauteng. The FERODO and Monroe programs are designed to help vehicle maintenance and repair businesses become leading providers of brake and shock absorber services in their markets. The two programs will be available to all 154 BestDrive fitment centres who meet the criteria.

“The FERODO and Monroe brands are the trusted choices of automotive service professionals and consumers around the world,” said Justin McKnight, National Sales Director, DRiV Motorparts. “The FERODO Brake Centre and Monroe Expert Centre programs combine the many characteristics that have made this brand leadership possible – world-class products, outstanding technical training and support and marketing tools that help businesses build exceptionally strong customer relationships.”

The BestDrive Fitment Centre network was established in the South African market in 2012 and is part of the Continental group of companies. Since its launch in September 2015, the franchised network has enjoyed rapid growth and consists of 154 BestDrive fitment centres across the Southern African region covering six countries, including South Africa, Namibia, Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland), Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Botswana. With a comprehensive product and service offering including tyres, batteries, brakes and suspension work, the BestDrive Network is a preferred channel for Continental Tyres South Africa. Consumers can enjoy a full range of reputable local and international brands at its conveniently located locations.

The FERODO Brake Centre program offers appealing exterior signage and other merchandising materials, leading-edge marketing support – including digital resources – and extensive technical training to all participating businesses. All BestDrive fitment centres who meet the criteria of this program, will have access to the latest brake diagnosis and repair training and related technical support offered by DRiV’s Garage Gurus®. This support is designed to help fitment centres increase business productivity by reducing the time necessary to diagnose and repair even the most complex brake system issues.

The Monroe Expert Centre program helps businesses add value to their customer relationships by restoring the “like-new” ride and handling of their vehicles through replacement of worn shock absorbers and Macpherson struts. The program helps participants increase customer engagement by enhancing employees’ expertise in vehicle suspension technologies and communicating the effects of worn shocks and struts on overall driving safety as well as the performance and durability of tyres and other components. BestDrive team members also will enjoy access to the latest technical resources and skills training available through DRiV’s Garage Gurus platform.

“We are excited to bring these innovative programs and their many benefits to the BestDrive network,” said Kevin Slabbert Managing Director of ContiTrade Africa. “Customers depend on us to provide the insight, along with world-class products and services, needed to maintain the safety of their vehicles. “DRiV’s FERODO and Monroe brands share our commitment to the safety and satisfaction of South African drivers and together we will demonstrate this commitment to every customer in every BestDrive fitment centre.”

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The Randlord Mansions: History

The history of these mansions is also a story of urban warfare and preservation. In the 1960s and 70s, as Johannesburg expanded, many of the original Parktown estates were ruthlessly demolished to make way for the M1 Highway and the massive concrete campus of the Wits University Medical School. The “Parktown War” saw heritage activists fighting the bulldozers to save what remained of the city’s architectural soul. Today, several of the surviving mansions serve as corporate headquarters, schools, or museums, stripped of their private domesticity but preserved as monuments to a gilded age.

Interestingly, these mansions also played a secret role in the city’s political evolution. It was in the drawing rooms of Parktown that the “progressive” mining elite would meet to discuss the future of the country, often finding themselves at odds with the more conservative Boer government. Lady Florence Phillips, in particular, used her influence to found the Johannesburg Art Gallery, insisting that a world-class city needed world-class culture, not just gold bars. Today, walking the “Heritage Trail” through Parktown offers a haunting contrast; you stand in the quiet, manicured gardens of the victors, looking down at the pulsing, crowded city that their gold mines created. It is the ultimate “view from the top,” a reminder that the extreme wealth of Sandton today has its DNA rooted in the stone-and-timber palaces of the 1900s.