trucking heritage
MUTUAL MILESTONES T Paccar Australia has celebrated 50 years of truck manufacturing at its Bayswater (Vic) headquarters but, notching an even bigger milestone, it has now been 75 years since two Army mates formed a company called Brown & Hurley. Today, of course, the two companies are synonymous with success. Steve Brooks writes
42 JUNE 2021
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HE FIRST HALF of 2021 has certainly been a memorable time for Paccar Australia and its leading dealer group, Brown & Hurley. For Paccar, it’s now 50 years since a K125 cabover affectionately known as the ‘Grey Ghost’ became the first Kenworth truck to roll off the Bayswater (Vic) production line. For Brown & Hurley, this year notches 75 years since the fateful day in 1946 when Alan Brown and Jack Hurley cobbled together their Army discharge pay to create a company bearing their surnames. It was, however, in 1964 that Paccar and Brown & Hurley forged the first bonds that would glue the companies so intrinsically together. After all, that was the year Brown & Hurley became Australia’s first Kenworth distributor and, soon after, sold its first Kenworth, a W923 model, to Doug Wyton of Toowoomba. Two years later, Paccar principals in the US announced that Kenworth trucks would be assembled in Australia from completely knocked-down kits but it wasn’t until 1969 that a big block of land at Bayswater, back then a largely rural suburb on Melbourne’s outer rim, was bought to build a factory to actually manufacture trucks in Australia. It was a boldly optimistic and exceedingly fortuitous decision. In half a century of truck making, Paccar Australia has produced more than 70,000 trucks and around 30 per cent of them have been sold through the Brown & Hurley Group. The 70,000th truck was, in fact, a T659 specifically ordered by Brown & Hurley as a commemorative unit for its 75th anniversary. Celebrating its 50 years of truck manufacturing with a high-profile event at the Bayswater plant attended by federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg and a number of government ministers and industry leaders, Paccar
Australia chief Andrew Hadjikakou emphasised the critical contribution of past and present employees in securing the company’s success over such a long, and sometimes demanding, period. “Today, the workforce behind each truck is measured in the thousands. An extended family of exceptional employees, dealers and suppliers that span the nation,” Hadjikakou enthused in a statement. “The desire to build the world’s best trucks still inspires and unites us.” Critically, the statement also cited Kenworth’s success despite “the removal of import tariffs, soaring fuel costs, economic downturns, global recessions, dimensional changes, emissions reductions and, most recently, a pandemic demanding changes to the production line to
ownerdriver.com.au
26/05/2021 11:43:29 AM
