Before Clive Taylor left the company he started in the 1970s, new owners Sooty and Tania Breach recorded a video of his memories that you can watch on the company’s website.
Born in Wellington in 1943, Clive Taylor moved to Raumati with his parents when he was two. After leaving school at 15, he worked in the building trade for a few years but really wanted to work in the automotive industry, so he left and worked in a garage.
A friend was working for a shingle company where Clive got a job driving a tip truck and running the crushing plant. From there he went to work for Car Haulaways in Paekākāriki.
“We used to leave there at two o’clock in the morning and drive through to Auckland, stay there overnight, and then unload, reload and the next morning we’d drive home again. We had to go up the Paraparas [SH4 between Raetihi and Whanganui] in those days because we couldn’t get under the bridge at Mangaweka.”
Clive’s next move was into refrigerated transport with RFL Refrigerated Freight Lines, carting ice cream from the Tip Top factory in Johnsonville, as well as loads of export meat and Wattie’s products.
“I did that for three and a half years and I really enjoyed it. It was long hours. You might leave on Sunday and get home Friday night. We always had a motto, ‘If you weren’t half an hour early, you were running late,’ because you didn’t know whether you could get roadworks, a puncture, or whatever.”
About this time, Clive thought he’d like to own his own truck, and borrowed $5000 from his mother to buy a second-hand truck and secure work as an owner-driver for a carrying company in Petone. “I didn’t really want to go out on my own because it was tough, even in those days.
“In those days, you needed a vehicle authority, which is like a carrying licence, and I never had one. I used to whiz into town, and then the cops would be looking for me, so I’d have to come home and hide and then I’d go back at 4am the next day!”
Clive realised he’d have to get a licence in order to survive, and was soon in a position where he gained work on the reclamation extension of Aotea Quay in Wellington. “That’s how I started, with one old truck, and then I got a brand new semi built and we started work on the reclamation.”
Each day, when he finished work on the harbour project, Clive would drive home to Raumati, load sand and deliver it back to Wellington, before returning to reload for the following day. “I got to bed at probably 11.30pm or midnight, and then I’d be away again at 5am.”
Clive’s first new truck was a Mack, and he says the service he received from Ron Carpenter and the team he headed was unparalleled. “Mack has been wonderful; the product, plus the backup of having mechanics who used to come down and work on my truck until midnight because I had to leave at 5am. They’d be here whatever happened, and if something went wrong, they’d give you another truck to use while your one was getting fixed.”
Clive has lost count of how many new and used Mack trucks he has bought over the years but says the brand played a big part in the business’ success.
In the beginning, it was based at Clive’s home. As the land around him was developed, he needed larger premises and bought the old council yard in Paraparaumu, moving his expanding business there.
Eventually Clive’s son Darren, a spray painter by trade, joined the business.
In more recent times, they worked on three major roading projects in the lower North Island – Transmission Gully, McKays to Peka Peka, and Peka Peka to Ōtaki. The next project is Ōtaki to north of Levin – work Clive Taylor Haulage will no doubt be involved with.
“Sooty and Tania have been amazing. I couldn’t ask for a better couple to take over the business and carry on the name. It’s been really wonderful and I’m really proud of them.”
Clive says he has put in a lot of hard work and long hours over the years, and running the business has been quite stressful at times. “I will miss the old truck, well, all of the trucks and all the bits and pieces here. But that’s life. We’ve just got to move on.”
