It’s a classic Kiwi start-up story with a couple of modern twists.

Andy Porter had been working in design for automotive accessory companies. Then when Covid struck and lockdown was imposed, he used the downtime to design and make a deck lid for his own ute.

That meant his ute-owning mates were soon pestering him to make lids for their 4WDs, and the Rad brand grew from there.
One of the first successes was a guy selling Ford Rangers who bought five.

“That was the point that the business really started to make sense, and we have been growing and growing ever since,” said Andy.

Now, Rad makes lids for the full market range, focusing on keeping stock of lids for the market ‘rock stars’, the top five ute brands. At the same time, Rad’s modern business model allows it to create custom lids for rare or older utes.

“There’s a demand for these custom lids for sure. We just created one for a guy with a 2000 Ford Courier, and we’ve done older Chev Silverados, older Nissan utes and the like as well.”

Andy says the Rad advantage lies in this flexibility.

“Our design and production process is flexible and responsive, it lets us create lids for popular utes and for older or rare vehicles. We can basically do what customers want.”

Andy moved Rad to Auckland from Hamilton recently, and the company operates out of premises at Mt Wellington.

“So we try to offer deck lids for popular utes at the best price. Our design process means we can quickly develop lids for new utes like Ranger or Amarok as they are launched here.”

Rad’s products are fully load tested, and feature safe and secure latching systems. Central locking is available as an option.
The lids are weatherproof, require no drilling and are rated for top-of-deck loads of 200kg.

Put simply, Andy says, the Rad brand’s emphasis is on ‘radventure’, aligning with the work hard, play hard passion Kiwis have for their 4WDs.

Details and the full range of Rad lids: www.radforutes.com/(link is external)