Geelong mechanic selling up after 50-year stint

A Geelong mechanic is closing the bonnet on his business and putting his workshop on the market after 50 years.

Garry Nelis will send his Safety Motors workshop at 22 Bellerine St under the hammer on September 28.

Nelis, who ticks over 50 years at Safety Motors today, says lowering a vehicle’s suspension was big business when he first started in the early 1970s.

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And so was the Ford Motor Company.

Customers would call up as soon as they took delivery of the latest muscle car and bring it in to be lowered.

Nelis started out on September 19, 1967, as an apprentice to Ray Rankin, who established Safety Motors in 1965 to fit car seat belts and child seat restraints.

But as vehicle safety improved after world-first seatbelt laws were introduced in 1970, Safety Motors specialised in steering, suspension repairs and wheel alignments.

Nelis bought the business in 1973 after his brother, Peter, joined as an apprentice in 1970.

“Often people purchased a brand new vehicle and dropped it off the next day at the workshop to be lowered,” Nelis says.

These were mainly Australian muscle cars, like GTHO Phase 3 Falcons, GTS 350 Monaros, RT Valiant Chargers or XU-1, SL/R and A9X Toranas.

Nelis says one of Safety Motors’ original customers and friends was Rex Gorell, who back then operated a small car yard at the top of Moorabool St and would send used cars over to be repaired.

Brothers Peter and Garry Nelis are closing down Safety Motors after 50 years in business. Picture: Alison Wynd

The car yard is still there, but Gorell went on to forge one of Australia’s biggest motor dealerships across Geelong.

There have been some surprises along the way, like the metre-long tiger snake that dropped from beneath a farmer’s Toyota LandCruiser as the Nelis brothers were in the process of removing the rear suspension, or the $20,000 in a brown paper bag found in a glove box when Garry was searching for the car’s locknut socket.

Nelis says that considering the left-hand mirror was an optional extra in 1960, modern cars are state-of-the-art and as a result fewer are making their way into the workshop.

Now, 80% of the work at Safety Motors is referred from insurer AAMI, which has been a major client for 35 years.

Only a handful of mechanics workshops remain in the city as the nature of the CBD evolves.

There were six service stations around the city centre when Safety Motors opened, which often pushed customers their way, Nelis says.

Safety Motors is on the market with commercial real estate agents Darcy Jarman and is set to go to auction on September 28.

The Nelis brothers expect to lower the roller door for the last time in December.

This article from The Geelong Advertiser was originally published as “Geelong mechanic Garry Nelis selling up after 50 years in business”.