Some Assembly Required – SNG/Moss/Rimmer Bros Merger

I recently received a curtesy call from Tony Lee of SNG Barratt, advising me that SNG Barratt was being combined with Moss Motors and Rimmer Brothers, under an entity known as MPG. Tony’s old title was General Manager, SNG USA. His new title is Director of Sales, North America, for MPG. Tony was frank in that he either couldn’t discuss and/or didn’t know the long-term composition of MPG with respect to these 3 legacy companies but in an immediate sense, the SNG warehouse in Manchester, NH was being shut down, with the inventory being moved to Petersburg, VA. Indeed, the next day, I received an email push from SNG stating “Exciting news for our customers; SNG Barratt USA is moving from our current location in New Hampshire to our new home in Petersburg Virginia! This will give us the ability to increase our range to support you and your passion.”

That is about the only thing I know for certain as of this writing. But needing to keep our new Litter Box editor, Phillip, flush with impactful journalism, I’m going to fill in the rest of this article with speculation, some of which may actually turn out to be correct.

In the way of background, SNG Barratt is a company that originated in the UK, many years ago, with the express purpose of meeting the demand for restoration parts for Jaguars. Over the years, they have developed an in-house manufacturing capability for 1,000’s of parts. A nice overview of their history can be found at https://news.sngbarratt.com/heritage/. I would note that the history of SNG Barratt has been fairly linear, in that they seem to be solely in the Jaguar parts business. Their current on-line catalog has listings for parts from the earliest SS cars to the latest E-Pace.

This history of Moss Motors is quite a bit more convoluted. The entire story is presented at their About Us webpage- https://mossmotors.com/about-us. Similarly, Moss started with a single guy, AI Moss, who started a business based on supplying parts for MG cars in the US, right after WW2. Over the ensuing decades, Moss expanded to supply parts to other British marques, such as Jaguar, Triumph and, more recently, the Mini, and the Mazda Miata. I do spot in their history the first mention of the entity Motorsports Parts Group (MPG) in 1998, which, as we will see, is part of the current story. Just based on the sheer range of makes and models that Moss covers, it seems to be the Goliath in this story. 

Rimmer Brothers is a firm that I am not familiar with. It appears to be confined to a UK presence. But it’s backstory is familiar. Two brothers, Bill and Graham, started a business repairing and supplying parts for Triumph cars in the 70’s. Over the decades, they have thrived, as discussed at their History website- https://rimmerbros.com/c/rimmer-bros-history. Bill and Graham recently sold their business to Radial Equity Partners in 2024.

That is some of the backstory to where we are today. I must admit that I have purchased the bulk of my E-Type restoration parts from SNG Barratt, so I have sentimental and practical reasons for wanting to see them grow and thrive. So what are we to make of these 3 companies, with somewhat overlapping business models, being acquired and merged by someone named Radial Equity Partners?   

In that regard, I turn to what AI wants to be when it grows up, which is the group think of the car forum that I follow the most, Jag-Lovers.com. In particular, the E-Type technical discussion forum. This is by far one of the more active forums that I follow and the news of SNG’s moving started a very active thread, “SNG Moving to Virginia”, the entirety which you can read here- https://forums.jag-lovers.com/t/sng-moving-to-virginia/468927

GregB immediately posted “Moss Motors, SNG Barratt, and Rimmer Brothers are now one company, Motorsports Product Group. Owned by Radial Equity.” Radial Equity was immediately shushed out as a PE. I am pretty sure that stands for Private Equity, which may or may not be a swear word in certain corners of capitalism. BobPhx stated that “PE always makes me nervous but at least they have Jaguars on their website.” He posted a link that stated “Radial Equity Partners – Leader in the Middle Market- Private equity from Radial Equity Partners invests in middle market businesses in consumer and industrial sectors, leveraging expertise and industry networks.” At this point, the forum thread sidetracked into whether the new entity would charge sales tax. This discussion topic went on for 30 more thread entries, with one poster advocating a national Value Added Tax. If you haven’t noticed, “thread drift” is a common occurrence in technical discussions about old cars by old guys! Anyway, I was happy when VooDooDaddy stated “Quality is key.
For me, sales tax and shipping rates are simply secondary decision criteria when all other things are equal.” Finally, something I could agree with! JeffS opined that “It is my understanding that this was not an outright sale and exit of previous management, but purely a merger to create scale (Rimmer, SNG and Moss), so that that new entity can have access to additional capital to grow and maintain the lights. Being on the receiving end of PE funding a good chunk of my career, mergers are now much more common than restarts – all of the above have assets, and in SNG’s case, very, very nice engineering and production facilities, but a gaggle of enthusiasts always hunting and pecking for a dollar here or there in savings, isn’t exactly a lucrative business model. One location for everything “x” (British cars in this case), is much more sexy and attractive to PE / their investors.” So you see, if you have a good source of opinions like a car forum, my opinion based article almost writes itself!

A couple of historical observations- When I started restoring Jaguars back in the “oughts”, one could buy parts from major concerns including SNG Barratt, Moss, Welsh, XKs Unlimited, Terrys, and John Farrell. Those of you that owned Jaguars since the last century probably have a longer list. To my knowledge, XKs Unlimited was absorbed by Moss, Terrys was absorbed by Engels (a European firm), and John Farrell sold his business to a UK firm that is no longer active. As discussed in my article Factory Tour of SNG Barratt (https://newhillgarage.com/2025/11/27/some-assembly-required-factory-tour-of-sng-barratt/), SNG Barratt maintains in-house manufacturing and design. So, the playing field is definitely shrinking.

I would also note that based on the bios of the three companies involved, all were started by passionate enthusiasts, who saw a need for parts and attempted to fill it. These three companies grew over the decades, probably beyond the wildest expectations of their founders. I assume they are all profitable. That said, they remain “middle market”. They aren’t large enough to “go public” and their founders are of an age that they may be looking to cash out. In this regard, being acquired by MPG/Equity Partners provides them a cash out and a way forward. It is fairly obvious that when the new bean counters drill down, they will find some areas where identical parts from the same source are being sold by all three firms. A consolidation of inventory would be obvious. There will also be cases where the three firms list the same part number but said parts are from different sources, at different quality levels and price points. This is where it gets sticky. I have learned with SNG that the term “premium aftermarket” normally gets me one of their superior in-house manufactured parts. In some cases, these parts are not available in the aftermarket at any price. SNG’s ownership of the rights to reproduce Lucas parts with Lucas markings is an example. There are of course many variations between these extremes. My worry would be that the PE dictated business model moving forward might lean a little to heavily on the profit side of the equation and less on the customer satisfaction side.

Regardless, on a personal note, SNG Barratt has always been the supplier of classic Jaguar parts that I admire the most. As my friend DickM told me when asked about SNG, “Real people (not phone trees) answer the phone, they generally know what they are talking about, they ship the correct part promptly, and when things aren’t right, they work hard to make it right”. It remains to be seen if that description of a well run business will survive a PE takeover.