Darren McMahon and his mentor Warwick Dawson at Rapid Auto Repair in Goulburn, the bustling workshop that Darren established after receiving a thorough grounding in solving mechanical problems. Photo: John Thistleton.
A few years before he surprised judges in a national WorkSkills competition, Darren McMahon was travelling from Goulburn to Canberra as often as possible with mechanic Warwick Dawson.
Still in high school, he would go on weekends and holidays to Warwick’s Canberra workshop, soaking up his knowledge of cars. The seasoned mechanic who thrived on solving difficult mechanical problems became a role model for Darren, who took a liking himself to overcoming intractable issues with engines.
The founder of Rapid Auto Repair, Darren today employs his early mentor in a staff of 16 motor mechanics and front office workers. “It’s been a lifelong friendship with Warwick; we have worked together for as long as I can remember,” he said.
Good male role models became critical for Darren from the age of 11 when he lost his father, Bob, who died of cancer. A mechanic at Southern Ford, Bob developed an allergy to oil forcing him to change careers. He became an accountant for the Goulburn Post newspaper.
Before his untimely death he had left Darren with an interest in cars. “I remember he had an old Toyota Crown that needed a bit of tidying up,” he said. “I remember being in the carport at home helping him with the little scraper taking black paint off the dash gauges and things like that.”
Family friend Doug Burrows continued to shape his mechanical interests. “He and his brother Herb were both major mentors,” Darren said. “Herb was a panel beater; he was good with the metal fabrication.
“I had a little Mini as a project car and Doug helped me rub it all back and resprayed it; we tinkered with that on weekends and worked on his Capri as well. A lot of fundamentals were taught over those years,” he said.
Doug introduced him to repairer Tom Moss, at whose business he completed his mechanical apprenticeship under Doug’s supervision.
While at TAFE, and with the help of a “fantastic teacher”, Bill Young, he entered the annual WorkSkills competition as a second-year apprentice against fourth-year apprentices and finished second nationally. “They were all surprised I was at a similar skill level or better than them,” he said.
Following stints at Tom Moss Autos and Goulburn Auto Mart where he convinced owner Steve Lehmann to allow him to do more than repair his secondhand cars and take on other customers’ cars, he went out on his own in 2002.
“I began by myself and quickly became too busy to handle it alone, so my wife Tracey came and helped with the administration,” he said. “I got another mechanic to work for me, then put on an apprentice and kept building from there.”
His reputation for understanding sophisticated engines drew car dealers around town to Rapid Auto with unresolved engine problems and often complicated electrical issues. These days, all cars have computers, and late-model European cars can have up to 42 modules ‘talking’ to one another.
“A lot of these cars work on as little as five volts, so if you have a voltage drop it can cause huge problems in cars and they can be hard to find,” Darren said. “You are checking every circuit in the car to try and find where this one volt is disappearing to. Because all these modules talk to each other, you have all sorts of systems that are completely unrelated putting their hand up and saying something is wrong with me, and it is not; it’s something down the line somewhere and once you fix it up, then everybody is happy again.”
As the auto venture grew, he continued putting on apprentices. “A lot of people leave the trade and the trade has obviously been great to me, so we continually employ young fellows and put them through their ranks,” he said.
“A lot grow their wings and fly away,” he said. Others stay. His workshop foreman Jesse McCartney started with Darren as an apprentice, left and has returned to help develop young mechanics by capitalising on their strengths and taking them outside their comfort zone to broaden their abilities.
Servicing 20 cars a day, Rapid Auto has also taken on the NRMA agency for the Goulburn district. They’ve added a tow truck, two service vehicles, equipment and staff to cover a 24/7 roster.
Turnover is growing about 10-15 per cent year-on-year on their site in the central business district where parking is scarce. That’s another problem that has to be solved, along with all the mechanical challenges, every hour of the day.
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