‘The grease hasn’t killed me yet’: New Plymouth’s engine man selling up at 83

At 83, Kerry Clark reckons a life dealing with grease and engines has treated him pretty well.

He’s worked on everything from classic cars to trucks to quad bikes, to the cylinder heads for support vessels during the building of the Maui offshore platforms.

But it’s the end of an era for the experienced rebuilder as earlier this year he and his business partner Keith Standen decided to shut their business Engine Rebuilders New Plymouth.

“The grease hasn’t killed me yet, I suppose.”

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The air in his workshop has a metallic tinge to it, tools line the walls of his shop and a vast quantity of machines sit on various parts of his workshop.

The Molesworth St workshop features a wide range of machines from a special oven that can bake engines for hours, to a deep-fryer-like contraption that allows them to remove grease from engines.

Around the corner is the other side of their business – Classic Components Engine Parts, the brainchild of Standen, which contains shelves stacked with over 60,000 parts.

Kerry’s career began at age 15 when he landed a five-year apprenticeship at Ibbotson Brothers, he described his boss Mel Titter as a very clever, patient man.

“We did all sorts of work… when the oil rigs first came to Kapuni we were overhauling the cylinder heads for them, they pretty dirty. They’d just come from South America and I think they must have run them on waste oil just about.

“There was lots of work for the city bus depot that used to be down where the Richmond Centre is now.”

He stayed at the firm until 1960, then worked in Canada in a machine shop for 18 months, after a few more years work back in New Zealand he got the chance to become a business owner.

Repco had decided to focus on parts rather than labour, so Kerry and business partner Athol Rowe bought the place, using their houses as collateral for a loan.

“Luckily we had good turnover, we managed to pay everyone.”

When Athol stepped back from the business, Kerry brought on his current partner Keith Standen.

Keith handled the bookwork side of things, while Kerry doesn’t use computers – “as soon as fax machines finished I was done”.

Every engine presents its own challenge, and while the variety of the work keeps it interesting Kerry says his favourite part of the job is meeting people.

“Over the years you do jobs for people and then their sons and daughters after that, it’s quite amazing.”

The guys who have worked for the business have gone on to do well for themselves, Kerry says, one owns a car agency another does underwater equipment for offshore rigs, some work in natural gas and others have gone to Australia

“None of them ended up in jail,” he laughs. “I guess that’s something I’m proud of – the people.”

He says workers that have passed through their doors each had their own specific skill set and many have hobby projects they work on in the weekends, one built a “really nice” sports car, another built an “especially good” Lexus V8 for the speedway.

And of course, there’s always a bit of banter between the guys who like Fords, and the guys who like Holdens.

“That’s never stopped.”

Kerry “kind of retired” about 10 years ago and was only working Wednesday afternoons, but came back after one of the employees left.

“We’re selling up now on account of our age and health and not being able to get the skilled staff that we wanted.”

People have told him they’re sad to see the place go.

“I hope everyone’s been happy with what we’ve done, I think the guys have been quite happy working here.”