Response-SV People - Peter Occardi PDF Print E-mail

Peter Occardi

Managing Director

Training/Qualifications:  HNC Mechanical & Production Engineering
Previous Notable Specialist Design/Product Involvement:
  • Fire & Rescue Vehicle builds, including type B water tenders, rescue tenders, hydraulic platforms light rapid response fire vehicles.  Library vans, general coachbuilt product (Fulton & Wylie Ltd)
  • Military vehicles, pet reg units, offroad utility vehicles, Special Vehicles Buyer (Volvo Truck & Bus [GB] Ltd)
  • Discrete, covert and overt armoured cars, 6x6 conversions, Project Manager, Hotspur armoured vehicles.  (Penman Engineering Ltd)
  • Special Products sales Consultant, Sales Engineering Consultant (Mercedes-Benz UK Ltd)
  • Body Builder Liaison (Renault Trucks [UK] Ltd)
  • New Type B/C ambulance design, Managing Director (Profile Special Vehicles [UK] Ltd)
  • Managing Director (The Response Group [Europe] Ltd)

Peter's story so far:

Peter's involvement with vehicles started at the ripe old age of 6 when he commenced his 'apprentice' training in his father's garage.  By the age of 14, Peter was already modifying and tuning some specialist vehicles including Jensens and Rolls Royces. 

Peter was head hunted at 17 direct from school by Fulton & Wylie to join their team as a Technical Assistant.  In the late 1980's, at the age of 21, Peter found himself second in-charge of a highly respected Company with 70 employees and a turnover of around 2 million pounds.

When the recession struck, Peter gained employment with Volvo Truck and Bus where he was responsible for purchasing components for the Irvine Bus & Truck plant.  Whilst there Peter imparted his knowledge of manufacture and design to the design team to decrease costs of some components by around 90%.  At VTBL Peter was involved in integrating special builds into the line processes.

Whilst contracting, Peter was involved with projects where he dramatically reduced build and lead times through systemisation and organisation of build, value engineering of products and introducing lean manufacture.  Whilst at Penman Engineering Peter reduced the lead time for Hotspur armoured cars from 6 months to 8 weeks and reduced the build hours by 60%.

Peter then worked with Mercedes-Benz and Renault Trucks in sales engineering roles for special vehicles.  His knowledge of the end application and the needs of the special vehicle converter allowed Peter to tailor specifications that gave the chassis suppliers genuine 'features & benefits'.  In 1994, Peter started work on 'T1n' for Mercedes-Benz, working to develop a package for the blue light market.  T1n was launched in 1996 and took Mercedes-Benz's share of the ambulance A&E market from under 5% to it's dominant position today - you might recognise T1n by it's brand name of 'Sprinter'.

Peter left his role as Body Builder Liaison with Renault Trucks to set up Profile Special Vehicles (UK) Ltd.  Peter had concepted an ambulance body which he believed would reduce the incumbent problems with ambulance supply in the UK.  He joined forces with Profile Vehicles Oy of Lisalmi, Finland and commenced development of the vehicle.  In June 2001, Peter launched the 'Salvus', and it is testimony to the original design that in 2008 the 'Salvus' features are the basis of the new national specification.  Indeed Salvus is the 'rolls Royce' of the ambulance world and is in service as the personal ambulance of many heads of state throughout the world.

Peter then formed The Response Group as a consultancy company and provided services to various organisations throughout the UK and beyond.  The client list of TRG is confidential, but Peter was involved in the turnaround from loss to profit of some of the better known names in the industry whilst heading up TRG.

Frustrated by the inefficient practices and failures of the majority of specialist converters, Peter dealt with and sought others who shared his vision to form a new company.  This led to the formation of response-sv.


"It truly is a life's dream of mine to head up a Special Vehicle Manufacturer and I am very excited about the formation of Response Special Vehicles & Products.  I have some incredibly talented and dedicated people working with me who share my vision on product design with functionality, form and features and want to provide exemplary customer service by working in partnership with our customers, suppliers and workforce.  Together we are all determined to get things 'right from the start' and our design work, procedures and systems are all geared to providing OEM standards of product and service to a market that has been starved of innovation for years.  I think the formation of response-sv marks a new dawn for the special vehicle manufacturing sector and for the customers and end users who will benefit from our innovation and dedication"