Rod’s resilience paid off

Rod’s resilience paid off

This series of profiles on local businesses is supported by Land Matters and Pritchard Civil.

Fifty-five years ago, Rod Clifton bought a block of land on the highway at Te Horo and started a mechanical repair business with a box of tools, a jack, a grinder, and a welder.

Now aged 80, Rod is still there, still running the business and still on the tools when he can. He’s the sort of guy with old-fashioned values that suggest nothing short of a wooden box will slow him down.

“If you want something, you’ve got to work for it,” he says.

And work he has, with the reward of a business that’s likely now the longest-operating repair business run continuously by the same person in the Kāpiti-Horowhenua area. Along with Rod Clifton Motors, which includes towing, Rod also has Rod Clifton Transport – now looked after by grandson Jesse Clifton – and a furniture truck rental business.

Rod is famously proud of being a Te Horo boy. He grew up on the farm of his parents, Sam and Ruth, in the Mangaone Valley. He went to Te Horo School and what was then Raumati District High School. He left school at the May holiday break, a couple of weeks before his 15th birthday.

“I like to say I left before I was 15,” he says impishly.

He worked on the farm for a while, but other than driving the tractors, farming didn’t suit him. So he got a job with Neville Webb in Levin well drilling. The skills took him to Australia when he was 21, but he was soon back, this time delivering milk in Wellington.

Meantime, he was building a stock car, installing a Chrysler Valiant engine he got from Australia. His milk station boss noted his skills and got him a job in the workshop. However, a side hustle fixing up cars was earning him more money than his paid work, so his thoughts turned to starting his own business.

By chance, Coastal Freighters was selling its site at Te Horo. Rod bought it with the weight of three mortgages that were charging 20 percent interest, and no formal training or apprenticeship.

It wasn’t easy to begin with. On quieter days he would work in Howie Townrow’s market garden just along the road, which would much later lead to him marrying Howie’s daughter, Joy.

But resilience, determination and sheer hard work paid off. The business grew and Rod became well known for restoring his huge collection of old tractors. He has 64 restored tractors in his tractor shed, with a total of about 400 around the property.

Rod’s is a remarkable story of longevity that might well have ended a bit over a year ago. He felt a twinge in his stomach and was lucky enough to get a doctor’s appointment the same day. On being sent immediately to hospital, he was told that untreated, the cancerous growth would have killed him within anything from two hours to two days.

Undeterred, and with treatment now behind him, Rod is very much back at work, but appreciative of his manager of 29 years, Kent Jenkinson, and grandson Jesse, who’s been working there since 2014. He credits them for keeping his business going, but it’s clear Rod Clifton’s influence pervades everything that happens there.

There’s no sign any of that will change soon.