A man’s 50s-style garage shed for work, fun and nostalgia
By John Cutt
Photographs: John Cutt and Venture Southland
Gary Wells has a shed that isn’t quite your normal sheddie bloke’s shed. It is still a place of work but a recent extension, after a quick clean-out, now doubles as a well-appointed entertainment area complete with bar and luxurious sofas which Gary made from the backs of two Ford cars. It could also be the old 1950s petrol station at Makarewa, once a small township and now incorporated into Invercargill to the north. A quick glance around Gary’s shed at the old-style petrol bowsers, the weather-beaten, corrugated iron wall, advertising placards and oil dispenser puts you back in the days when petrol was actually served to customers.
Further around are the motorbikes, cars and memorabilia and ribbons from Gary’s motorbike racing days. Nowadays, he is a Ford man through-and-through and a Harley Davidson enthusiast to boot.
Originally from Alexandra in Central Otago where his father ran a contracting business, Gary was brought up in a heavy-machine environment. Driving a D9 bulldozer at age 17 was an “awesome” experience, Gary says, and about a year late he was driving trucks.
But Alexandra was too small for a teenager keen to hit his straps and find his own way in the world, so Gary moved south to Invercargill where he began to develop an interest and thirst for speed. Unlike boy racers who use city streets to quench their thirst for speed, Gary chose the racetrack. His father had built and raced stock cars for many years so, as Gary says, “it’s in the blood.”
In Invercargill, Gary and his brother were almost enticed to buy a second-hand stock car. Fortunately, they took their father’s advice not to touch it. “You’ve got to have plenty of money,” he told Gary. That was good advice, as he had had three jobs to finance his racing. So Gary turned his attention to speedway and sidecar racing. “A guy gave me the opportunity to be the swinger on his sidecar for a day. I loved it—real adrenaline rush.”
Soon after, Gary and a mate went halves in a machine, a partnership that lasted barely one lap of a training session after the bike crashed and his mate ended up in hospital with a broken collar bone. “I then decided I would get my own bike,” he says. From that point, Gary was set on a path that not only brought a fair amount of fame (but no fortune) and eventually a hobby that “keeps me out of the pub and out of gaol.”
Racing career
During a nine-year racing career, travelling all over the South Island and at times venturing further north, Gary amassed a creditable array of trophies that included twice being South Island champion and gaining a fifth placing at the nationals. “At one stage we were racing every weekend. If we weren’t racing here (Invercargill) we’d be racing in Christchurch.”
But after nine years and achieving most of what he had set out to achieve, Gary decided to retire and look for new adrenaline-rushing challenges. He tried go-karting and while he says it was good fun there was no adrenaline rush. Motor-cross came next, “but all I could see was bones getting broken.”
By now Gary was working in the aircraft maintenance workshop at the Invercargill airport. “The guys tried to get me into hard track racing,” he says. “I had a Triumph 750 in those days and the guys said they could make it into a race bike.” And they did. Gary raced it three times at Teretonga competing in the BEAR (British, European, American Racing class). Another workmate offered to build him a 650 hp Bonneville, eventually uprating it to 750 hp. “I had good success on that.”
Burt Munro
Gary is an avid enthusiast for the Burt Munro Challenge series of races which have been held each November in the deep south since 2006. In fact, Gary features on the poster promoting the inaugural event and three of his bikes were used in publicity photos. One year Gary competed in all events (beach racing at Oreti Beach, track and speedway at Teretonga and street racing at Wyndham).
So with that background it’s perhaps easy to see how Gary developed a “hobby” of importing and reselling Harley Davidson and Triumph bikes. But in fact the move came about almost by accident. He imported a crashed Triumph from Japan, initially planning to use it to build a sidecar speedway machine. “It turned out it wasn’t suitable but I found a buyer for it and used the money to buy another ‘crashed’ bike.” One thing led to another and Gary quickly moved out of the market for crashed bikes and began importing good-quality, late-model second-hand Harleys, Triumphs and Indians from the US.
Imports
Once the bikes arrive, Gary gives them a thorough check and ensures they meet New Zealand’s vehicle standards. Brakes, exhausts, checking for and repairing corrosion and sometimes a paint job are the things that usually need attention. Any modifications are removed to ensure that, where possible, the bikes are resold in as near factory condition as possible. Importing late-model bikes made the job easier, Gary says. Once the bikes are checked over and any repairs made, they are tidied up for resale, mostly on Trade Me.
And so began the need for a larger workshop. He soon outgrew his original 12 metres x 9 metres shed which became a logjam of classic Ford cars, bikes and motoring memorabilia. The decision made last year was to build a four-metre extension at one end and a six-metre extension at the other.
The smaller extension is destined to be the fibreglassing and painting bay, the other a dedicated motorbike workshop. However, not being one to do things by halves, Gary wanted to do something different and hit on the idea of creating a retro 1950s-style garage theme that includes a flush toilet cunningly disguised as an outhouse/dunny/long drop toilet.
So well-disguised is the loo that, at Gary’s 50th birthday and extension-opening bash, several women, after seeing what they thought was a long-drop toilet, asked if they could use the toilet at the house.
50s garage
“I had always wanted a theme and thought a 50s-style garage would be neat,” Gary says.
One wall of the extension (inside the existing garage) was therefore designed and built to recreate a country Shell garage with weathered weatherboards, weathered paintwork and rusty iron, complete with two Shell pumps, “restored” with an aged look. Most of the material for the feature wall was scrounged from wherever Gary could find it. It took three ute loads of used iron before Gary was satisfied he had the iron with just the right rusty/aged look he wanted.
Modern era
However, on the other side of this wall you step into the new extension and the modern era with the new workshop, set up with two waist-high, movable bike workbenches at one end with a bar neatly tucked into one corner at the other.
Pride of place on the wall behind the bar is a nip pourer made out of an old Ford Jail Bar truck grille, and a stereo unit disguised behind a 1962 Ford Fairlane compact dashboard. Against the walls are two sofas, one made out of a Ford Falcon rear end and the other out of a wrecked Ford Compact, specially imported from the US. Gary says that a Mk II Zephyr or a Prefect wasn’t going to cut the mustard.
The extension also doubles as a display area for Gary’s own racing days memorabilia with award ribbons hanging from the beams and photos adorning the walls.
Dream to reality
With the help of mates, the extension and tidy-up was completed barely an hour before the kick-off to his 50th birthday bash. Coinciding with the Burt Munro Challenge weekend in late November, the shed opening attracted bike enthusiasts from far and wide. Gary’s brothers and two sons from Australia, plus mates from all over, converged on the shed to christen the new extensions. It also gave Gary the opportunity to thank his many mates who had helped in its construction and fit-out.
“My dream has become a reality,” Gary say. “Some people say that they’ll do something—one day—but I’ve done it. You’ve got to set goals if you want to achieve anything. I like lists (of things to do) and cross them off (when they’re done), otherwise it doesn’t happen.”
Gary said several of his mates had said they envied what he had done and wished they had sheds like his. His reply: “Well, just do it.”
The Burt Munro Challenge
The Burt Munro Challenge, which Gary Wells participated in, is held in the Invercargill region in November each year and attracts thousands of enthusiasts. Racing includes a rally, Oreti Beach competitions with the Burt Munro Trophy 50-miler (winner Jason Feaver), one-mile dash and the NZ Beach Racing championships, tough track and speedway racing at Teretonga, a hill climb at Bluff Hill, street racing at Wyndham and the New Zealand Long Track Championship. With different classes of bike and six venues, there are 52 events over five days.
For the 2010 Burt Munro Challenge, 21-year-old Ryan Hampton set a Bluff Hill Climb record of 46.21 seconds, won the Formula One Teretonga Sprints and with two wins and a fourth in the Wyndham Street Race heats, took the overall title.
Burt Munro relative and former Southland rider Lee Munro won the BEARS class in the Street Race and finished second behind Hampton in the open class title. Munro, whose grandfather was Burt Munro’s cousin, won the Wyndham Street Race open class title in 2008. Oreti Park Speedway’s Grant Tregoning took his third consecutive solo title at the Burt Munro Speedway Spectacular.
The 2010 winner of the Burt Munro Challenge Trophy was Kevin Ryan from the West Coast. In winning, he paid tribute to the men who lost their lives in the Pike River tragedy, many of whom were his close friends.
An increasing number of Australian riders attend the challenge week and Melbourne rider Doug Wood competed recently for his fifth year in a row. “There’s nothing in Australia that compares to it,” he told the Southland Times. “This is my fifth year here. I love it.”
Following the international success of the 2005 film The World’s Fastest Indian starring Anthony Hopkins as Invercargill legendary speed king Burt Munro, the film’s director Roger Donaldson suggested the Southland Motorcycle Club run an annual series of motorcycle races to keep the spirit and legend of Munro alive. The club was then working with Venture Southland to establish street racing in Wyndham and they went on to set up the challenge.
