TRADE TALK
TERRY PENNEY: ONE OF THE BURSON AUTO PARTS ORIGINALS Many people have contributed to Burson Auto Parts’ 50 years of success One of the people that helped to create, nurture and build Burson Auto Parts from the ground up over an outstanding 32-year career with the company, is its former General Manager of Operations, Terry Penney. Terry first came in contact with Burson Auto Parts co-founder Ron Burgoine while working at a service station in Melbourne back in 1972. Ron started doing business with the service station bringing carpet off-cuts sourced from Ford Australia that he and partner Garry Johnson had made into car mats by a home-based, hard-working team.. These mats became incredibly successful, heralding the start of what was to come with these two Aussie automotive entrepreneurs. Gradually Ron and Garry expanded their range of parts and accessories that Terry sold on consignment at the service station. Terry recalls looking forward to Ron’s visits as he would bring fish and chips every Friday with their new deliveries of stock. Terry was the mechanic at the service station and a fellow by the name of Andrew Schram (who would go on to forge an incredible 40-year career with Burson Auto Parts) was his apprentice. The quartet of Garry, Ron, Terry and Andrew had no idea at the time how integral each one of them would be in creating what has become an Australian automotive aftermarket business institution in the years to come. Terry’s enthusiasm and professionalism was well noticed by Ron Burgoine, who told him that he had the “gift of the gab” and would be great in sales, offering Terry a job in 1975 as a Cash Van Driver with the now four year established Burson Auto Parts company.
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Three years of being one of the top selling Burson Auto Parts cash van drivers followed, creating outstanding rapport with his trade customers. Terry would head to the company’s first warehouse in Heidelberg twice per week to replenish his stock and it was during one of these visits that Garry Johnson made him an offer that would shape the rest of his career. “Garry approached me and said that they were looking at opening their first store, the former Lapco Auto Parts shop in Braybrook (Melbourne) that was complete with racking and was perfectly set up for us,” Terry said. “Garry wanted me to manage it and despite not knowing a lot about store management – in fact nothing at all, I took the opportunity and quickly realised that I needed some help. “I called my mate Andrew Schram and told him we were opening up a store and I needed him on board. When he said ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ I replied with ‘Neither do I, but we are doing it!’” As Terry and Andrew had worked together before, they shared similar hard-working ethics and gelled brilliantly as the first Burson Auto Parts store manager and second in charge. Both of the enthusiastic spare parts store debutants dived into their roles head-first and would actually compete with each other as to who could do the fastest puncture repair or shelf stocking among many other duties. This is where Andrew started the role that would occupy the rest of his entire professional career, selecting the store’s stock in order to have exactly what their customers needed.
Australian Automotive Aftermarket Magazine September 2021
The Original Burson Auto Parts management team (from left): Andrew Schram, Terry Penney and company co-founder Garry Johnson.
Terry and Andrew also actioned something from that first Burson Auto Parts store that forever changed the face of trade based automotive parts sales and service. “We were looking at ways to improve our service to our rapidly growing numbers of trade customers. At that time, our competitors would do parts deliveries twice a day, once in mid-morning and once in the afternoon,” Terry said. “We knew that our customers needed better service than that, so we introduced on-demand delivery of parts. This was incredibly successful for us, the trade loved having the parts as soon as they needed them and as we all know, this service is now a staple of the automotive parts business in Australia. “I am very proud of how we were the first to do that, as having come from the workshop floor ourselves, we understood how important it was for workshops to get their parts as they needed them, in order to provide prompt service to their customers.” Garry brought his marketing prowess to Burson Auto Parts’ focus on customer service and promoted the company as “The Fastest in the West” given its location and its emphasis on providing the trade with the fastest possible service. The synergies of Garry and Ron’s business expertise combined with Terry and Andrew’s auto mechanical knowledge were already becoming obvious. Terry managed the inaugural Burson Auto Parts store for two years before the start of the company’s expansion with the opening of the Aussie company’s second store in the bustling central location of City Road, South Melbourne. Terry oversaw this super-successful store for three years before making the move to a new store closer to his home territory in Essendon, which as
