Suggest an edit to this item

Format: Photos

Image Tags

Add

Show tags

no tags yet

Linked To

Collection

Badland, Bob

Map

Add

StreetView

Recollections

Add

By: UHCL Admin4th Jun 2019 9:35AMThe following information about this image was provided via email from Vince Borowicz (31/05/2019):
I served my apprenticeship at Benges garage in 1976 and worked there till it closed .The tow truck was sold to Collins cranes then ended up in Greytown with the Barret family .I was then lucky to purchase it and it is awaiting restoration as my job was to maintain it and it was the truck that i got my license in

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 New Zealand License

This licence lets you remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially and although your new works must also acknowledge us and be noncommercial, you do not have to license the derivative works on the same terms.

Tools

Full size thumbnail Fit to screen Fit to width Fit to height Rotate 90 degrees Zoom to 100%

Show Text / Transcription Show keyword hits Highlight keywords Download Add to Collection Contact us about this Suggest an edit to this item Citation for this item

Princes Street; Benges Garage, May 1962.

Details

DescriptionPhoto comes from a magazine 'Beaded Wheels', digital image only, caption reads:

This photo of Benges Garage, Princes Street Upper Hutt, was taken in May 1962. The damaged truck is the Campbell's Sawmills Upper Hutt Leyland Comet logging truck which went over the bank coming out from bush behind Paraparaumu. The tow wagon was a 1944 Chevrolet which served very well for nearly 30 years. In the background is the 1955 Ford 300E shop van.

The business was started by Len Benge in 1934. Son, Ivan Benge a long time Wellington branch member and now a Horowhenua member, worked here for 38 years and took over when Len retired. His Grandson (also a Wellington member) presently working in New York, took over the business until it was closed down in 1990.

A 50th-aniversary article was printed in the 'Leader' on February 21, 1984.

Len was born in Awatuna, Taranaki, and came to Upper Hutt aged four. He was educated at Te Marua School and became an apprentice mechanic with Ford agent Arthur Harper in 1919. In 1924 he spent 18 months at a Taumarunui Ford agency, and then took up a job at General Motors, checking cars as they came off the assembly line.
In 1929 he took charge of Lockhead's garage in Petone, before setting up his own business in 1934, initially in Ranfurly Street; then in Princes (the article gives no date). He had an agency for Hudson, Morris and Terraplane cars, and had a Ford Model A tow truck. He advertised the cars, panel beating, and Duco spraying on the front of the building
One contract was maintenance vehicles for Campbell's sawmill, in the Paraparaumu bush.
he article was accompanied by pictures taken in 1939 and 1984; but the originals are not in the collection.Date TakenMay 1962Geotag^[1] Last edited by: Don McLeod