1972 was a big year for a couple of Melbourne lads
Fifty years ago a bloke named Russell Stuckey and his family acquired the Dunlop racing tyre business from the factory and the other fella, Peter Brock, won his first Bathurst… on Dunlop tyres.
After a long stint at Dunlop post-war, Colin and his wife Betty started Stuckey Tyre Service in 1966 in shared premises in Flemington, with Colin’s brother Alan, a panel beater. Russell Stuckey worked part-time in the family business joining full-time in 1969, after dropping out of the first year of an engineering degree.
The same year man walked on the moon, Dunlop withdrew from Formula One and Stuckey tyres was on the move to Brunswick, their home for the next 22 years.
Three years later in 1972 Dunlop offered Stuckey the motorsport franchise for Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, with the Stuckey slogan, ‘Racing Since 1972’ signifying this event.
From the get-go the Stuckey team was a regular fixture at all Victorian racetracks initially servicing customers from the back of a Holden ute.
In 1973 the Stuckey team made their Bathurst debut, looking after the Victorian entrants that made up a good portion of the grid, with Japanese-sourced Dunlops.
Shortly after Russell took on the responsibility of race tyre development, working closely with Dunlop Japan, who sent out tyre technicians to Bathurst each year. Given the importance of the business, Russell went to night school for three years to learn Japanese.
One of the big fish that landed early on was Harry Firth and the Holden Dealer Team, with Harry becoming a mentor to the Stuckey racing operation.
In 1984 Stuckey was appointed Dunlop’s National Motorsport Distributor with Russell travelling to race meetings across the country, and at Bathurst the business set a high watermark, with every car on the grid wearing Dunlop tyres, except the lone Goodyear-backed car.
The following year Stuckey went to the Daytona 24-hour race as part of Allan Moffat’s crew and two years later he joined Moffat and John Harvey at Monza, with a brand new Group A Commodore acquired from HDT for round one of the inaugural World Touring Car Championship. After the six leading BMWs were done for illegal panels, the Dunlop shod Aussie Commodore won, writing itself into the history books.
Celebrating the 50 years
In a coals to Newcastle scenario 1988 saw Dick Johnson and John Bowe tackle the best Ford Sierras in the world, at Silverstone for the Tourist Trophy. The Aussie-built Sierra on its Japanese Dunlop radial slicks obliterated the field, including the factory Fords, qualifying on pole and comfortably leading the race, until an overheating issue. This race was especially pleasing for Stuckey with the UK drivers demanding to know about the unique tyres that were infinitely superior to the UK Dunlop cross-ply slicks.
Stuckey once again joined Allan Moffat this time with Klaus Niedwiedz in Japan in 1989 for the Fuji Intertec 500 with Moffat’s ANZ and Dunlop tyred Ford Sierra. This was Moffat’s swansong and he did it in style, winning the race.
By now motorsport accounted for two-thirds of the Stuckey business, but in 1995 it suffered a body blow when the Dunlop race tyre factory in Kobe, Japan was destroyed by an earthquake.
Almost immediately Holden Commodore tyre moulds were retrieved from the rubble, and airfreighted to the UK where development began, culminating on a Bathurst win in 1995 for Dunlop shod Larry Perkins and Russell Ingall. The pair went on to win the great race on Dunlops two years later.
Then in 2000 Supercars went to a control tyre and suddenly Stuckey was out of the game. Bridgestone had the initial contract then Dunlop, but its obligation meant Stuckey wasn’t even involved with tyre fitting. What had been a dominating factor for the business and Stuckey’s life went to nought overnight.
As that door closed it allowed Stuckey to concentrate on other racing categories including, in recent times, vintage and classic car tyres for road and racing which has seen exponential growth over the past decade.
These days the business is made up of three areas. Racing is still the biggest but only just, closely followed by the vintage and classic tyre business and then as a tyre retailer.
We recently caught up with Russell to reflect on the past half-century.
(Unique Cars) “So how did you acquire the racing tyre operation?”
(Russell Stuckey) “We were already Dunlop tyre sellers with Mum and Dad starting the business in 1966 after Dad left Dunlop. Back then there were two racing divisions one in Melbourne and one in Sydney, with different sales territories. The Victorian one had been run down and even though we had no experience with race tyres, we were prepared to give it a go.
“I started with a pile of old and obsolete race tyres. They were basically unsaleable. But Dunlop weren’t going to import more until that lot was gone.
“At that time Harry Firth was buying his tyres out of Sydney for the Holden Dealer Team and we would fit them. Gradually we won his support and approval, and he was a great advocate for us, helping us out and encouraging us.
“One day he said: ‘I sold a Torana to this guy in Brisbane can you please send some tyres up to him?’ It was Dick Johnson who raced a Torana in 1973. Yes, Harry was good for us.”
(UC) “So you went into the family business after school?”
(RS) “At the end of school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do but I went to RMIT to do an engineering degree, but after a few months I realised it wasn’t for me. Dad rang me up and said, ‘look you can always come and work in the family business,’ to which I said, ‘Dad, there’s no future in tyres,’ (laughs) and since then it has been my life and the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Early on, the racing tyre business was an add-on to the road tyre operation and in the first few months there was little in the way of sales.”
(UC) “So how did you shift the old and obsolete tyres?”
(RS) laughs – “I still have some. I sold some at half price and some got thrown away. In the early 1970s Dunlop had lots of mates and used to give them free tyres, so when we took it over in 1972, we had to re-educate the drivers and teams that if they wanted tyres they had to pay for them.”
(UC) “Did you also offer the trackside service that you are so well known for?”
(RS) “That service started once we took over the racing business and there’s no doubt providing the service at the track was the key for us. You are there to help people you’re not there to flog tyres. We gradually built up a great rapport with many teams and drivers, it was exciting.”
(UC) “What were the highlights?”
(RS) “Every year we won Bathurst between 1972 and 2000 and in that time roughly half of them were won on Dunlop. Back then a Bathurst win really meant something with full-page ads in the papers – Dunlop wins Bathurst – with the winners on the rostrum.
“When you won a new customer that was also a highlight because it was such a competitive business. If we could get a Bridgestone team or driver to try Dunlops and then change, it wasn’t just about money in your pocket it was a real achievement.”
Fitting tyres on Uncle Phil’s Mustang
“Allan Moffat was a difficult customer in the early days but when he started racing the RX7 Mazda he tried Goodyears before switching to our Dunlops. He won the Hang Ten 400 at Sandown on them and we’ve been friends ever since. Then when he started running the Sierra on Dunlops he bought a truckload of tyres for the season. That was when there was no limit on the number of tyres you could use.
“I remember Allan saying to me many years after retirement that he thought he had an advantage over everyone as he could get Goodyear tyres no one else could, but after trying the Dunlops he realised what he had been missing out on. And that was another highlight.”
These days the fastest growing sector of Stuckey Tyre Service for classic cars of the 1950s, 60s and 70s and vintage cars going back to the early 1900s with various sizes and diameters.
(RS) “We are the national distributor for Pirelli who make a dedicated range of all the old tyres and with Michelin and we are one of two distributors. We ship tyres all over the country and we are one of very few specialising in these tyres.
The diversification into classic and vintage tyres helped Stuckey get through the Covid lockdowns when there was no racing, as people were restoring old cars. Stuckey was busy shipping out tyres the entire time, with Russell acknowledging they were one of the lucky few.
“We can get just about any tyre a customer needs. Many cars require a particular size and pattern and we’re fortunate there’s a regrowth in the area. As I said Michelin and Pirelli are now making a big range of tyres in original moulds, so they look right and they are right.”
Stuckey Tyre Service
828 Sydney Road
Brunswick, Victoria
Tel 03 9386 5331
1300 854 324
sales@stuckey.com.au
From Unique Cars #473, Dec 2022/Jan 2023
Photography: Mark Higgins, Phil Walker