Shout out to ARB Somerton

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BZOOK
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Location: Doreen

Shout out to ARB Somerton

Post by BZOOK »

Simon at ARB has been fantastic in helping me out with an extra leaf spring. Excellent support and customer service. Highly recommended.
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gwagensteve
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Re: Shout out to ARB Somerton

Post by gwagensteve »

Good to hear you've had great service.

Bit of history about ARB retail in Victoria - When they branched out from only having the Croydon retail store (this was before they moved to Kilsyth) They opened a store in Abbotsford, next door to the Terminus Hotel. I actually applied for a job there just before I finished uni. It eventually became clear they needed some more retail stores, and entered into agreements with well established 4WD shops in Melbourne to rebrand them as ARB stores.

Northern 4WD, in Newlands road Coburg, which was established by Rob Kay in the 1980's became ARB Northern, and in the East, Vic4WD, established by Matt Fenner, an ex ARB sales employee, Winch challenge competitor, and builder of pretty tough 4WD's, became ARB Southern.

The founders have both left those businesses, but it's nice to know that good service continues. Obviously the ARB empire is now a little larger than it was back then.

We bought our first ARB bar in 1985, when the business was still in a small factory in Bayswater.

I've had the opportunity to spend some time with Andrew Brown over the years. He's a good bloke who still has a very strong working knowledge of the product - we spent quite a while chatting about ultra4 and how those guys were setting up lockers to survive "crash locking" them at high speed/high horsepower (which no sensible person would ever do.) Andrew got banged up pretty badly in a huge off road race car crash a couple of years ago. Made quite a mess of his buggy, which was quite a nice thing, running a 6.0 litre version of the nissan patrol/titan V8. These photos were from the first time he raced it, I think, in 2011.

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michaelpiranha2000 wrote: The rear is in great condition. but has a broken crown wheel and pinon
BZOOK
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Joined: Tue 03 Feb, 2015 6:31 pm
Location: Doreen

Re: Shout out to ARB Somerton

Post by BZOOK »

Interesting stuff. I'd actually forgotten my cousin in Whyalla used to co pilot buggy racing back in the day. Explains why he drives like a lunatic on any dirt road now!!
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gwagensteve
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Re: Shout out to ARB Somerton

Post by gwagensteve »

I just realised I missed the whole point of the story- Vic4X4 became ARB southern which then became ARB Somerton. I still have a Vic4X4 branded winch extension somewhere.
michaelpiranha2000 wrote: The rear is in great condition. but has a broken crown wheel and pinon
BZOOK
Posts: 603
Joined: Tue 03 Feb, 2015 6:31 pm
Location: Doreen

Re: Shout out to ARB Somerton

Post by BZOOK »

Simon Gentle is the Branch Manager.
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