Time Warp

Carcoon will be 25 years old in 2018, so we meet the people behind the scenes to discover how the bubble idea came about

- Rob Hawkins

TAKING DRY storage to another level, Carcoon shot to fame in the Nineties with its clear plastic bubbles. It’s no coincidence that a product designed to reduce damage caused by excess ambient moisture was developed in the heart of the old cotton industry – Salford in Manchester – where moisture control was an essential requirement for cotton spinning.

Back in the Eighties, Carcoon’s founder, George Page, was running his accident repair shop alongside a fully equipped restoration workshop. “The problem we often had with fully-restored cars was that, once finished, a customer’s car could sit around for weeks and sometimes months before it would be collected,” George explains. “In a busy working environment, a simple car cover was not the solution. Typically, a covered car loses its appeal; often people inevitably place objects on the cover without realising the value of the vehicle underneath, and the cover would collect dust causing even more concern regarding paint damage.”

George realised that an all-enveloping enclosure was the answer – to place the vehicle in its own protected mini-environment where nothing touches it. The very first bubble was easy to create. A plastic sheet on the ground and a plastic cover were all taped together before being inflated with a small fan. “We quickly realised there was moisture inside, so we developed a set-up procedure and added a small adjustable drying vent,” George explains. “The system worked wonderfully from inception. However, I continued to develop the idea, which eventually led to a new Active Airflow patent, which we still use today on all our airflow systems, including helicopter storage units.”