Safety Devices

Safety Devices traces its lineage to the mid-1960s, when John Aley of Aley Bars introduced the first roll cages to European motorsport, and was itself established in 1972, starting, in the words of its managing director, 'from a Cambridge garage'. The FIA's mandate for roll cages in racing drove early growth, the range widening to front cages, and the firm pioneered the first external roll cages for 4x4 vehicles, a design later adopted by the British Army. It expanded into larger premises as a chassis-preparation business for works teams including British Leyland and Ford.

In 1980 the company converted the fleet for the inaugural Camel Trophy through the Amazon, and it went on to prepare rally cars for Pentti Airikkala in the 1985 World Rally Championship and the Lancia Delta Integrale in which he finished fourth in 1988. Around the same time the entrepreneur Rex Muldoon bought the business and absorbed its competitor Aley Bars; late in the decade Land Rover commissioned a North American Specification roll cage for the US Defender, and by the end of the 1980s the company had been acquired by Matter.

During the 1990s Safety Devices moved to a larger factory at Soham, Cambridgeshire, installing CNC tube profiling and bending. In 1995 it developed the roll cage for the British Army's Land Rover Wolf, a contract of more than 7,500 units that brought in a CNC robotic welder, and it continued to equip Camel Trophy vehicles with custom roof racks and kits for the Kalimantan event. Touring-car work included Matt Neal's Ford Mondeo. By the end of the decade the Soham factory employed about seventy people.

The 2000s brought fleet roll-over protection for Toyotas in the oil, gas and mining industries, ISO 9001 certification, a move of manufacturing to a partner in Europe, cages for Top Gear's 'Star in a Reasonably Priced Car' and for Tesla's first car, and United Nations peacekeeping supply. In the 2010s the firm built sidecars for Harley-Davidson, restraint systems for Jaguar's C- and D-type continuations, its largest ever ROPS for BAE Systems and safety improvements across the 7,000-vehicle Wolf fleet. The current company, Safety Devices International Limited, was incorporated on 13 January 2005, moved its registered office from Newmarket to Cambridge House, Holborn Avenue, Mildenhall, in August 2014, and is led by managing director Aeron Lloyd, a director since May 2014. It marked its fiftieth anniversary at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and still sells roof racks, bumpers and Defender cages through its accessories shop and dealers.