The first issue of New Zealand Trucking magazine hit the shelves with a blue R-Model Mack from the Waikato adorning the cover. The truck’s name was Torquing Bulldog and it was owned by the magazine’s co-founder, Trevor Woolston, a contractor to Dibble Independent Transport at the time. Forty years to the month, we wanted a blue Mack from the Waikato on the cover again. Holy cow! Did we hit the nail on the head with the truck(s) we chose and the story behind the incredibly humble family who owns them.

PART 1

One of the neatest things about my time at New Zealand Trucking magazine has been the ability to unlock many personal mysteries. Take Hanes Engineering, the wee forklift business on the side of SH1 Te Rapa – on Hamilton’s northern approaches. Ha ha, I hear you, but phrasing it that way was an intentional time stamp because that’s when the mystery started for me: riding in stock trucks to the neighbouring Horotiu freezing works, and then years later, rolling by in the MH Mack with a load of sawn timber for somewhere in Hamilton’s interior. It was a place bound to invoke an inquisitive reaction from any diesel- or machine-head passing by, posing far more questions than its humble presence could ever hope to answer. It always seemed there was more going on.

And now, decades later, here I am, sitting in a room at that very site, with current patriarch Chris Hanes. There are detailed answers to every question I’ve ever pondered and a confirmation that this is far more than a building and an eclectic collection of used forklifts … all available to industry at a price sealed with a handshake.

Of course, the increasing presence of the company’s road fleet in recent years does more than hint at a hidden complexity. I was right! There was more going on. Four Top Trucks in New Zealand Trucking magazine also points to someone amid it all for whom trucks are more than Trojans of utility, serving to tell the world a little about the pride you have in what previous generations of your name have achieved. And that brings us to the question …

Why Hanes?

Other than a blue Mack form the Waikato, we had sort of hoped for, but realised it would be a little unlikely, a company celebrating a birthday. This is, of course, our 40th birthday issue and Rudd Transport, which owns the bedazzling Kenworth K200 gracing the poster in this issue, is 40 this year also. “Hmmm?’, we thought. ‘A birthday hat-trick? Is that even possible?’

Although we weren’t going to attempt the full OCD with three companies turning exactly 40 – one of whom just happened to be based in the Waikato with a recently purchased blue Mack – we did feel we’d won Lotto when the Hanes name popped back up on our radar. They had the truck, you couldn’t get any more Waikato-based if you tried, and last year, the business turned 70! Plus, they’re an old friend, always willing when we call, so that was kind of nice, too. In fact, they support either publication when they call, so hats off for that to them, too.

It was early summer when I popped in, and Deb Hanes (wife of Simon – generation three) greeted me. “Simon’s away overseas, but I reckon he’ll be up for that, for sure! Call him when he’s back.” We did … he was … bingo!

Let’s not forget either, that any small local business that had been trading for over a decade when Neil Armstrong took one giant leap, saw JFK’s worst day, witnessed Norm Kirk pass away in office, Muldoon’s downfall, has survived the oil shocks of the early 1970s, the stock market collapse of the mid-1980s, the GFC, a pandemic (good grief!) … that firm has something to teach us all – and now would be a good time, all things considered.

What is it you do?

One big lesson we’re retaught at Hanes is hierarchy. I ask Chris what his position is to get a fix on where he and the two of his four sons in the business, Simon and Christopher, mesh. Chris stares back across the table, contemplative, with almost a baffled look. “I’m generation two, and Simon and Christopher are three – Carter is four. Well, I’m still here,” he chuckles, “so I guess, I suppose I’m … um.”

And there it was, right there in that moment – leadership is about the respect you’ve earned, not the label you slap on your chest plate, and believe me that respect walked in and out of the office all interview long. Anyone and everyone felt comfortable wandering in, and they were there simply to update Chris on what was going on, or seek a snippet of wisdom that would contribute to a decision they were making – not one being made for them. Let good people do what you trust them to do. The style is endemic through generation three also, and like so many long-standing businesses of their ilk, the hardest game to play in the day- to-day operation at Horotiu is ‘spot the Hanes’.

The other interpretation of the question points to the company’s activities. Walk through the gates at Horotiu and it appears the answer is ‘everything’. There are sheds and trucks, cleaning bays, engineering shops, painting bays, all buzzing with people here, there and everywhere. It’s largely container sheds and well-established portacoms, and Simon says to a greater extent that’s a zoning thing as much as an expediency thing – there are other facilities elsewhere. The deck/smoko room combo typifies the camaraderie that appears woven into the company’s DNA, a place where everyone goes to chill and chat.

Where does it all start then? The engineering shed out at the roadside recently adorned with the 70-year logo, still the family engineering firm today. That shed, and Chris’s father Ivan Hanes … Well, sort of.

“We hail from Gisborne originally, my mother Elaine was a Huntly girl. Dad came to the Waikato to work for his uncle Vesti Thomas who had Hamilton Engineers and Traders, and between he and my grandfather they sort of got Dad established.

“My grandfather Charles Herbert Hanes was an only child and New Zealand-born in 1896. Neither of those two things were overly common for the era,” says Chris. “It was Charles’ predecessors who immigrated, 1844 I think it was. Carter and his generation are actually the fifth New Zealand-born generation.”

A World War I veteran, Charles worked for the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company in Gisborne, that company eventually merging with Dalgety & Co in 1961 to become Dalgety and New Zealand Loan. “He eventually ended up the New Zealand boss for Dalgetys, and it was he who helped Dad with the seed money for Hanes Engineering. Charles lived to 102, passing away in 1997, so I knew him very well.”

Chris was one when the family relocated to Horotiu from the one-room shed they’d rented off Dick Wymer down by his sandpit on River Road in Hamilton. With his new shed up, Ivan was in business on 24 June 1954, taking on whatever needed building or re-engineering. In time, the last- ever Keith Hay house moved from Auckland to Hamilton arrived also – the Hanes was established!

As a subcontractor to Clyde Engineering, he was heavily involved in the truck repowering era so prevalent in the wider region post-war, up to the early 1970s. The big Americans were still a way away and the demand for more capable trucks was insatiable on the back of exploding regional growth, forestry, and infrastructure projects. “Perkins 6354s, Caterpillars, and 6V53 GMs all into Commers were common. Mahons, the circus people, they liked Cats in their Commers. John Mahon has still got one in his shed,” says Chris.

“It was different then. When I said he’d do anything, that meant anything to make ends meet, and that might mean digging drains if the engineering was slow. Although we still have a dedicated engineering business, and always will, it was his willingness to do anything in the early days that resulted in what we have today.

“Dad died in 2008 aged 80. We only had the one truck then and he said, ‘You know, I can see the day where we’ll have six trucks.’ I wonder what he’d think of it today with 11 in the fleet.” Visibly emotional, Chris says, “When he was close to passing, I remember him telling me, ‘Don’t forget where you come from.’ I’ve held that close ever since.”

From left: Simon, Chris, Sindy, and Carter Hanes.

Life’s a blast

Aside from the engine conversion work, road cleaners built on S Bedford chassis for Dick Wymer, coal carrying decks for Watt Brothers in Ngāruawāhia, and reconfiguring NZCDC TK Bedford 4×2 tractors for their second life on-farm or elsewhere, were all part of the Hanes’ work profile.

As the business grew, Ivan chose not to keep up with the emerging mass-produced structural market – sheds and barns, etc. “Dad could see it was an area of growth, but too competitive and low margin. Although we did a lot of structural engineering, it was all quoted jobs.”

Growing up in and around the business was Chris’ life, and he remembers his early involvement in the truck work. He followed the family path, qualifying as a fitter turner and fitter welder, and in time, worked on some of the biggest jobs, like welding in the foundation sections of the Huntly Power Station chimneys, welding on the sheet piles during the building of the first shore-to-ship slurry pipeline at Taharoa, and tank assembly at Wiri Oil Services.

Innovation and opportunity can pop up when there’s a dearth of key materials in an economy buzzing with big projects. By the early 1970s, one of those key materials was blasting sand.

“The demand for dry, clean, and multi-grade blasting sands was increasing and at the same time, there was a move away from silica-based sands, mainly for health reasons. Going to places like Whiritoa on the Coromandel, or Roose’s up the road for our sand was out of the question.

“We sought and were awarded a mining licence on the West Coast north of Te Akau at Matira. I’d been out there looking and it was really good stuff – I had it analysed at the DSIR [Dept of Scientific and Industrial Research] and it was 98% iron, it was the best in the country.”

The plan was to cart it back to Horotiu in the business’ trusty Commer, where it would be screened and then put through a dryer Ivan had built from an old rail concrete mixer ex the Turangi power project, heated using a Cat D8 injector pump and atomiser fed with waste oil. From there, it was cooled in a series of large hoppers. “Cooling it was the problem; once it was through the kilns you couldn’t get the heat out of it; it would stay hot for weeks. You couldn’t bag it due to heat and weight. At times, we had trouble carting it because it would melt the covers on the truck.

“Of course, access to and from the mine was the issue, you had to cross private farmland and the locals weren’t too excited about trucks on the terrible roads west of Te Akau village. Permission to access was a contingency of the licence and therefore the mine’s location. Luckily, we found a willing farmer who saw huge personal value in the access road we would develop from his place, out to the coast proper. Another condition was no trailer, truck only, even though local stock trucks ran trailers.”

With a Ruston-Bucyrus RB10 dragline on site and ready to go, the Commer TS3 with a 6354 Perkins repower set forth on cartage duties, a young Chris at the wheel most of the time. Having 120hp (90kW) on tap, a five-speed transmission and two-speed diff, it was no real match for the access road, or the rural roads that led away from the farm for that matter.

“The first hill away from the load-out was a big one. If it ran out of power before the top, I’d simply roll back and take some off … then have another go. The days we had three loads to do were long, I can tell you.

“We only had one ‘oops’. I laid it over on the access track. Dad came out and the farmer helped us. We winched the deck back into place on its side so the ram wasn’t damaged, stood it up, chucked the popped windscreen in the cab next to me, and off I went. You just sorted stuff in those days. Now there’d be all sorts of people out there, probably a helicopter, goodness knows what.”

With more than enough product to meet their own requirements, word soon got around and before they knew it the Haneses had an additional enterprise on their hands.

“We carted to Rotorua, you’ve got no idea how long it took to get there in the Commer …” Chris says with laugh, shaking his head. “Three and a half to four hours.”

The Commer was replaced in time with a Nissan Tasker 6×2 they converted to 6×4. The truck’s four-cylinder, two- stroke engine was buggered and replaced with a 6V71 GM at 250hp, backed up with a 10-speed Roadranger.

“It was still truck-only out to the mine, although in time, we would sneak out with a trailer. We got away with it because we were never a threat. We’d be courteous on the road, and when asked about the chance of bringing a load of metal out, we would always deflect the request away to ‘Skin’ Henry, or Te Akau Transport.”

Marsden Point, Taranaki, Rotorua, Ōhāki, Wiri, they were all destinations for the Tasker. “If you looked over the sides, it looked like you had nothing on the deck. I remember being pulled into a weighbridge on the way up north once – I was often pulled up but never weighed. The cop asked if I had much on and I said no, of course. He looked over the side and said, ‘Oh hell no, that’s nothing, off you go.’ I was close to 50 tonne when I got there! It was 98% iron, you see. It looked nothing!

“The sand wasn’t a daily thing you realise. I did an Auckland load weekly, but the rest was as required by the customer,” Chris adds.

By the late 1990s, the blasting sand business was succumbing to a combination of a drop-off in the Think Big projects and bigger players in the sand and aggregate supply businesses moving in on the action.

The ups and downs of business

It was the late 1980s when Ivan was down at the pub one night and did a deal to buy Gene Horne’s 661 Machinery Centre located on the Te Rapa straight where The Base shopping centre is now. Gene dealt in forklifts and all manner of machinery, purchasing, wrecking, on-selling. He had the contract to purchase New Zealand Forest Products’ excess forklifts, it was a good business.

“I had to get the truck and go down and cart it all back here. That was the start of the forklift wrecking, parts and refurb business, still a core in the Hanes business today. It’s diversified a lot, but that was the start.”

The 661 purchase got the Tasker involved in a whole new world of cartage – linehaul! “We were always travelling to auctions and sales – still do – to bring back stock we could strip for parts, reconfigure, or tidy up and on-sell. We modified a two- axle tilt deck trailer to carry the forklifts, fitting hydraulics and a winch to carry forklifts, to go behind the Tasker.”

Chris remembers one memorable trip to Whanganui for a railways auction. “Me, Fergus King and a very young Simon left Horotiu at 2am and headed down through the Paraparas. I bought a couple of F20 forklifts – they’re 14 tonne each – plus a bunch of stuff, compressors and the like. By the time we loaded it and headed for home it was about eight or nine at night. We ran out of power on one of the hills in the middle of the Paraparas somewhere. I kept the engine running and held the brakes while Fergus headed off into the night to find help. He came back with a farmer and a D-Series Ford and we managed to get going. The farmer offered to follow us through to the end in case we got stranded on the last climb just before Raetihi. We crested the top under our own steam at about 1000rpm; she was dropping off real quick. We syphoned diesel out of the forklifts to get us home on that trip. In those days, it was all cheques and often places wouldn’t take a cheque for fuel from an outsider, so we’d often carry fuel in case we needed it. We arrived home about lunchtime on Sunday, I think. Yeah, I’ve had a few horsepower issues over the years.”

Dealing with the constabulary in the pre-deregulation era proved eventful and time-wasting on occasions also. In those days Hanes only carted its own product, but Chris recalls one occasion on a weighbridge near Levin where the Queen’s representative took some convincing. “Dad had to drive down from Horotiu with the paperwork before I could move!” (Who said emails and texts were a pain in the arse?)

“We’ve bought lots of stuff over the years. Three Aveling- Barford dump trucks from Wanganui Road [Marton] – I brought them home on the Commer, two stripped down and one whole. One of them was turned into a forklift. World War II dump trucks reconfigured to forklifts for Delta Timber here in Ngāruawāhia. People don’t realise it now; you just couldn’t get forklifts back then.”

Carter heads for home in the Super-Liner. Onboard a restoration project for an eager Waikato enthusiast.

On the rise but always grounded

The truck fleet has increased steadily from that time on the back of growth and diversification in the core modern-era businesses – engineering and forklifts. The venerable Tasker was replaced with an ex-Shell Fiat 619 tractor set up to cart forklifts, with a new Rawhiti Farms three-axle transporter on air suspension allowing the rear to drop down. “That was a good truck, 260hp with a Roadranger. Everyone knocked the shit out of me for having the air suspension on a transporter, but they didn’t understand our needs. Forklifts are a very specialist item to move – they’re high, point loading is huge, they need full decks, the ramp angles and all that. Most transporters are built to cart bulldozers and big gear. Our transport business was built on the back of no one wanting to move our forklifts. “The Fiat was really the first truck we did outwork with on a regular basis. Simon has expanded the business as a specialist transporter of forklifts and scissor-lifts, the hard-to-cart materials-handling equipment.”

The Fiat was also the first truck to wear the Hanes blue livery. It was joined by a TM Bedford and trombone semi, the trailer obviously a support to the engineering business also. The TM is still in the company’s keep, recently undergoing a full restoration for the up coming Wheels at Wanaka 2025.

Truck brands at Hanes have been a mixed bag over the years. An R-Model Mack, ERF EC10s ex the UK, Freightliners in bonneted and cabover guise, IVECOs, they’ve all contributed to the wider business and materials-handling transport story. Today, the fleet reflects that evolution with high-profile units like Volvo FHs and Scanias pulling purpose-built B-trains, and an IVECO S-Way semi combination, each encompassing everything learned over four decades in the business of hauling materials-handling equipment. The technology available in modern trailer systems has certainly played its part also.

Then there are the two big Macks set up in a more traditional vein for bigger, brutish loads. “Nick Kale at MTD has been great to deal with on the Mack purchases,” says Simon. “He’s super passionate about the Mack product and it shows.”

Trailers are varied in terms of brand also, says Simon. “We have units from both local suppliers, and find TRT is great for the hi-tech stuff with the smarts it builds into the trailers, and MTE fits the big, heavy role really well.”

In classic Hanes style, the culture fostered around the trucking side of the distribution work celebrates the individual discipline, evidenced by not just the four Top Truck posters on the roll of honour, but most recently the Best Fleet Award at this year’s Bombay Truck Show.

“One man, one truck, and we’re now able to give them really good equipment. Plus, it is challenging work at times and that appeals to the good operators who like to be tested.”

The entrance to the Hanes business today still belies the activity and operations encompassed therein. The traditional cornerstones of engineering and all things forklift comprise the bulk of daily toing and froing, but it’s a case of how far can you take an idea.

“The distribution of OEM forklifts works really well with the parts and refurb business because we can often take traded stock off them,” says Simon. “With the exception of the Manforce off-road forklift, we don’t sell new. It just keeps us out of everyone’s way.” (Shades of not treading on the local carriers toes in the sand recovery days.)

“We do some storage of inventory. We have the room so we’re able to help; there’s a lot going on all the time. I just go where I’m told.

“Every aspect of what we do is specialised. Our ethos is we chase customers, not work. We don’t go looking for work, we look for commercial relationships and we focus on looking after them – we can offer a lot more than merely cartage. Many of our clients have been with us for a long time.”

Much easier to change lanes on the expressway when the trailer is narrowed up…

Customers, not work

Big, little, on- and offshore, there’s nothing this humble operation and its people won’t have a go at building, fabricating or moving.

“Our people are everything,” says Chris, always turning the limelight away from himself. “All our engineering boys are ticketed, and we do stainless. We’ve just completed a big cooling tower project. Last year we built a boutique meat plant in Central Otago, and we help with maintenance and shut work next door at AFFCO Horotiu.

“Greg Belk runs the engineering division. The Belk family has worked with us a long time – three of Greg’s sons work in the business and Greg’s late uncle Kevin also worked here for many years. They are wonderful craftspeople and a wonderful family; we would do anything for them.

“Dave McGrath in the transport operations does a wonderful job for us. He despatches and pilots, and knows where everything is and what’s happening.”

In terms of succession, it looks like the incredible Hanes story is far from over. “There are four boys. Simon and Chris work in the business. Simon is taking over from me, and his wife Debbie handles a lot of the commercial arm. Christopher manages all the technical and compliance side of things. Their brother Karl works in law enforcement in Queensland and Mark is CEO at the Huntly Power Station, says Chris.”

Generation four is also present with Carter (21), currently driving the Super- Liner, and a diesel mechanic in his own right. Like all great family businesses, there’s no coercion or pressure on each generation to pick up the banner – but with engineering, machines and trucking all vocational occupations, it’s odds- on someone’s going to grow up wanting to get involved from the moment their eyes can focus.

In a lovely touch to round out this part of the story, we end at the beginning recalling Ivan’s counsel to his son about never forgetting where you come from. On the day I interviewed Chris, I had to wait a few moments before we could sit down and start yarning. Chris was doing a deal on a forklift with John Mahon, current generation at Ngāruawāhia- based Mahons Amusements, a firm so entrenched in the fairground business in New Zealand, it almost qualifies as Kiwiana. Here, amid the hustle and bustle of the 2025 business, was a customer/supplier relationship as old as the Hanes business itself, with the two patriarchs having a yarn over a machine, a yarn that ended with a handshake.

“We’re turning into our fathers,” John said, laughing. “We can’t throw anything away!”