How it began
Torqued Distribution was founded in August of 2018 by technology leader, auto enthusiast, and angel investor, Tim Trampedach. Starting at a young age with Lego Technic, going through various levels of R/C cars, getting to attend lots of Formula 1 races and ultimately building multiple street-legal kit/custom vehicles, the passion for all things automotive and motorsports are a constant in his life, though it wasn’t always his career.
Tim’s career path instead led to gaining deep experience building products at some of the most high profile Silicon Valley companies of their time, such as Sycamore Networks, Cisco and Zynga, to name a few. This knowledge of how to bring new brands and products to market helped Torqued Distribution secure exclusive distribution relationships with iconic brands from Europe, UK and elsewhere. What started as a one man “side hustle” operation importing Tillett Racing Seats quickly grew to a sizable business importing more than 30 iconic brands including MSS Suspension, Nuke Performance, BOOST products, and many more.
“Torqued Distribution is actually a technology company with a racing and performance habit.”
Kent Bradley, Publisher Performance Business Media
The Torqued Cloud platform
To generate this kind of growth in brands and a dealer network buying these brands through Torqued Distribution, the company has built its in-house Torqued Cloud platform. In one single high performance and easy to use platform, the Torqued Cloud encompasses many systems traditionally thought of as separate and standalone, including:
- Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) including pick, pack & ship operation
- Dealer portal with eCommerce ordering and product data export
- API for direct connections from dealers’ stores or ERP systems
- Product data management
By always referencing a single source of truth for all data, the Torqued Cloud avoids the pitfall of disparate systems needing to be kept in sync manually or through some delayed regular batch process.
Launching WaaS™️
And while the company was started by and is filled with gear heads, it’s the technology that really excites the team. It’s the key point of differentiation compared to other wholesale distributors, which in 2020 led to the launch of Torqued Distribution’s Warehouse as a Service (WaaS™️) offering.
By connecting their eCommerce systems, such as Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce, or an ERP system to the Torqued Cloud, dealers can get real-time and up-to-date inventory, pricing, product information, images and more. Furthermore, orders are fulfilled with a single click to route orders to Torqued Distribution and tracking is automatically routed back to the dealer’s customer. This is the Torqued Distribution WaaS™️, the modern zero-assets virtual warehouse for dealers large and small.
Gearing up for growth
In early 2021, Tim brought on aftermarket industry veteran Lou Lobsinger to head up sales and marketing. As Co-Founder of Detroit Muscle USA and longtime National Sales & Marketing manager with PROFORM, Lou brings solid management and entrepreneurial experience in the automotive industry to Torqued, creating a powerful well-rounded leadership team that intersects the best of the technology and motorsports industries.
No Cost 3PL and 100+ brands
As an always-evolving technology platform, 2022 saw not only tremendous growth in available products to over 100 brands from all over the world, ongoing fast growth even in a post-Covid softening economy, but also innovative new business models.
At the forefront is Torqued’s new No Cost 3PL program for manufacturers. This combines the power of Torqued’s fulfillment capabilities with channel access to its large dealer network. It’s the perfect low cost setup for international brands to have stock on the ground in the US ready for quick cost-effective shipment and for any brand that prefers to focus on development and manufacturing instead of drop shipping orders. Plus, any No Cost 3PL client immediately has its products in the Torqued dealer network, like any other brand distributed by Torqued.