Air Date: Week of August 26, 2005

Host Steve Curwood talks with Colin Dowes, owner of Sprayonmud, a new product used to give the impression that your 4X4 has been off-road.

Transcript

CURWOOD: Yeah, let’s face it, there are many things in life that used to be free seem to cost money these days. There’s a brisk business in bottled water, oxygen bars are springing up in cities, and now you can buy a can of mud to spray on your vehicle. That’s right, Colin Dowse is the owner of Sprayonmud in Shrewsbury, England and he joins us now. Hello, sir!

DOWSE: Hi there.

CURWOOD: Now, why would folks want to buy mud to spray on their vehicles? I mean, they already have to pay at the car wash to get them clean?

DOWSE: Yeah, but we were down in the pub late on a Friday night with a few of the guys and we started thinking about ideas and someone said, “Well, what about all these people that drive four wheel drives and never go in the country? We ought to develop something for them." And so we came up with the idea of Sprayonmud.

CURWOOD: Well now, why develop Sprayonmud for these... you think they’re embarrassed to be driving these giant gas hogs?

DOWSE: They are and they only use them to go and collect the kids from school or go down to the shopping mall. Their neighbors think, well, they’ve got that gas guzzler and they don’t go off-road. Now they can fool them.

CURWOOD: Now, Colin, exactly what are the ingredients in Spraymud?

DOWSE: It’s pure Shropshire mud.

CURWOOD: I see…

DOWSE: It’s refined, of course. We take out all the stones and twigs, but it’s real Shropshire mud.

CURWOOD: And what color is it?

DOWSE: Well, it’s a reddish, sort of brownish color.

CURWOOD: So, how well is it selling?

DOWSE: It’s flying off the shelves.

CURWOOD: Yeah.

DOWSE: I’m just shipping a load to Japan, we’re opening up distributorships in Canada and in the U.S. I’m talking to people in Germany and Holland. The interest is phenomenal. We’ve had a hundred thousand hits on our web site.

CURWOOD: What’s the art to this? How should I be painting my vehicle with this?

DOWSE: Well, art…I’ve never, I’ve not thought about that. It just, it feels good to spray mud all over a car, I tell ya.

CURWOOD: Colin, I’ve got to ask you, is your next business venture--a chain of carwashes?

DOWSE: (laughter) That’s a good idea. No, it’ll be something else that we think up on a Friday night, in the pub.

CURWOOD: Colin Dowse is the owner of Sprayonmud. He’s talking to me from his office in Shrewsbury, England. Thanks for taking the time, Colin.

DOWSE: Okay, thanks. Bye.

CURWOOD: Cheerio.

[The Beta Band “Dry The Rain” from ‘3 E.P.’s’ (Astralwerks – 1999)]

CURWOOD: Just ahead: In Nairobi, Kenya, motherless elephants are being kept alive and set free back into the wild, thanks to the round the clock care they get at an elephant orphanage.

ANNOUNCER: Support for NPR comes from NPR stations, and the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation, online at mott.org, supporting efforts to promote a just, equitable and sustainable society; the Kresge Foundation, building the capacity of non-profit organizations through challenge grants since 1924, on the web at kresge.org; the Annenberg Fund for Excellence in Communications and Education; and at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, from vision to innovative impact, 75 years of philanthropy. This is NPR, National Public Radio.

[Tony Allen “Ariya (Jeff Sharel Mix)” from ‘AfroTech’ (Quango - 2002)]

 

Links

Sprayonmud