Obituary: Keith Ripp 1947 – 2020

In my career, any subject I ever wrote about was based upon my personal experience. I simply cannot pretend to be an expert on something without the years of homework. In HiFi loudspeakers I spent some time as production manager for Acoustic Energy. Now a company that has been established for 30 years. I helped do that! It also informed my abilities as speaker reviewer, since I had to test everything that went out. I once heard a mild dullness that turned out to be a bad resistor in the passive crossover. It was 0.18 Ohm out of spec. Turned out that I have good ears.

In car audio, I was always a ‘lifer’, having always adored it. The whole modified car thing and even calling the stuff I loved ‘ICE’ was always just a stick-on for me. I left pro audio and worked with an ICE distributor but it was before its time… so I ended up as a rep after getting a tip off from a bloke called Gordon Dutch. They are now a part of Armour Automotive but were called Electrosystems. They mostly sold the fiddle-faddle of the car electrics trade. Starting with injection moulded boxes for sticking a radio under the dashboard in a Mini, and going via wires and crimps, all the way to sticky tape. And those aerials Alan Sugar made his fortune selling, with 30 different bases for the car bodywork.

I was not like the reps of the big Japanese companies, who would go to five calls a day maximum and take it easy…. I had to do at least eight or ten or I was in trouble. It was hellish and we competed with an outfit called Maystar and some git in a van-with-everything-in-it. His prices were a bit steep but Maystar reps and me were the sworn competition. On any given day you could find the shop had no order for you as the Maystar bloke had just visited….. As the routes were obvious if you were in say, deepest Kent, I would miss the next call to change it so HE got the ‘”Oh we just saw the rep from the other lot!”

So it was pressure but it paid the mortgage. I hated my Ford Sierra rep-mobile with a deep and abiding passion, despite the Kicker sound system I hung in a thick MDF parcel shelf.

One of my favourite calls was always Ripspeed on Fore Street. Run by Keith Ripp. It was a big store filled with REAL motorsports stuff and reeked of posh new tyres. I loved it. There was also a big car park and a large area back stage as it were, where they processed the epic mail order business. It was a hive of people buzzing around, packing and handling goods. They advertised everywhere and even ended up sponsoring the show I used to be arena commentator for, Doncaster, renaming it Ripseed Donny. But that was years later.

It was easiest to park out back and instead of following the ‘public’ route around the building and into the front door, to just pop in the shop by the goods shutter door and go through the back stage bit. Thing is, one day I was on a call there, piled in that back door and as I crossed through the despatch area clutching my pilot’s briefcase, I saw the perma-tanned face of Mr. Ripp looking vexed and shouting, “WHO LET THAT FUCKING REP THROUGH HERE!” I was mortified as that kinda blew the call… however, Kieth just ushered me through and sent me off to get the order from his employee. He was friendly, and it was odd having bellowed at the staff. But he explained that is was definitely them who should be being more secure as stuff had been nicked recently! And I wasn’t to know… it was a good order too.

I was sad to see that yesterday, the R-Tec lads page on facebook had this image upon it. Keith Rip really was the patriarch of the cool modification, maybe even the spiritual daddy to the whole Max Power/Fast Car magazine generation.

By the way, Fast Car remains in print, long after they closed Max Power and the single most important car enhancement company in the UK remains the domain of his sons Adrian and Jason. www.rtecshop.co.uk