TERRAIN TAMER
Describe your business?
Essentially, we are 4WD parts people. We have built up a huge range of aftermarket 4WD parts through over 50 years of innovation, design, field testing, metallurgy and manufacture. Our parts are the ones that keep you running, through the gearbox, transfer case, driveline, suspension, brake, clutch and thousands of other parts that make up any Landcruiser, Patrol, Triton, Navara, D-max, Ranger etc.
Tell us some of the history of your company?
We started in Melbourne, in the 1960’s, and many of our customers back then were tour operators like Bill King (of AAT Kings) who were travelling up through the red center, following tracks like Burke & Wills or through the Simpson Desert. There was no Stuart Highway back then and it was rough so they’d return with broken or damaged parts and ask our team to design or source a stronger replacement for their next trip.
Gradually, over 50 years, this has resulted in the range Terrain Tamer offer today, with the promise of being at least as strong as Original Equipment, but often following on that legacy of designing parts that are made stronger and tougher to last longer in harsh conditions.
Where is the company at now?
We’ve definitely grown over time. We now have 16 branches, 7 of which are international, and our parts are sold into over 80 countries. We’ve also just launched our estore, which gives the public access to our entire catalogue, and allows them to choose between either collecting or having their order sent from one of our 30 locations around the country, to ensure they receive it as quickly as possible and can get back on the road.
Everything we do today continues on from the original promise of parts that will get you home, the same philosophy that got those tour operators back from their trips in the 60’s and 70’s.
What is your unique Selling Point?
Our experience is something that means a lot to our brand and to our customers. We’ve spent 50 years learning lessons, so we see newer manufacturers making mistakes today that we learned from decades ago. This is evident in the quality of our products, but it also helps us to bring old ideas into the present to address new problems.
We have 130 staff and around 25 of them have been with the company for over 20 years, so we have this huge, unmatched knowledge base and our parts interpreters are second to none.
2 Words to describe your product or service?
Pioneering & Passionate
What makes you different from your competition?
We cover such a wide range of different parts that we don’t really have a direct competitor. There are clutch companies or suspension companies or driveline companies, but no one else that really does it all. The genuine dealers like Toyota and Nissan might come closest, but they’re often also good customers of ours.
Terrain Tamer is very unique in the way it has been built over the past 50 years, and this makes it hard for someone new to come into the industry and follow our path. It would take them 50 years to get where we are today, and by then we would have progressed another 50 years ahead.
What products are in development now?
Around the world, our parts knowledge is being sought out by owners of vehicles with different requirements, such as aid vehicles, military or mines, which need a different way of thinking. In designing for these vehicles, we’ve been able to develop some really heavy-duty products that will solve problems for recreational drivers in harsh environments, and for non-aid or non-military vehicles here in Australia.
More specifically, we’ve released a range of Parabolic leaf springs in the past 12-18 months and they’ve been a huge success. We have constant demand and requests to release more of these for different makes and models so we’re now working on expanding that range for a wider variety of vehicles. We’ve also released a range of Heavy-duty Bearing Kits, which we’re looking to expand on. These bearings are made by an OE manufacturer in Japan, with exclusive Terrain Tamer tooling and last up to ten times longer than the Original Equipment equivalent, so have proven extremely popular already, in the few short months they’ve been on the market.
We’re working closely with Multidrive Technology to develop a range of GVM Upgrade kits for the Australian market and the first of these have also just been released, which we’re really excited for.
Who uses your product?
People who really care about their 4WD, who own a workhorse of a vehicle and need it to be tough. Mining is important to us, as is farming, emergency services, vehicle fleets and of course the passionate recreational 4Wdrivers.
What’s your greatest achievement?
The Australian automotive industry has lost a lot of original manufacturers recently and much of the aftermarket has seen a lot of consolidation, so we’re proud that after 50 years, we’re still 100% Australian and family owned, by the same original founder, and that our company has seen growth for every one of those years, with no signs of slowing down.
We’re also proud of taking our hard-earned knowledge to the world, to lead the field in industries beyond the Australian market. We’ve won Export Award and Australian Automotive Aftermarket Association awards for innovation, which remind us that we’re on the right track and are a huge badge of honor.