09/07/2026
This post may be long winded, and I apologise as I try to navigate through some complex emotions I'm having right now, without waffling on.
Myself (Derek) personally, has had a less than average year....past couple of years if I am to be honest.
This coupled with the fact that it's also probably the most stressful time to be in business in this Country right now.
I had a conversation with a good friend of mine this afternoon, his car didn't go to plan due to his vehicle's intercooler not being up to the standard of the rest of his build, something we are working with him towards making even better than before.
At this point he informed me that people at his work (these people are unknown to me) had advised him to remove his vehicle from our workshop as they had heard things from others about our workshop.
I'm not going to lie, that I find this scenario deeply dissapointing to hear, and also demotivating in a time when it feels like being in business is more of a passion project with little to no return elsewise once the government take their giant slice.
I am fully aware of the things that some say about our business, and I am aware mostly of WHO is saying it.
I won't stoop to their level however and talk badly of them behind their backs.
I would however encourage people who hear these stories to ask, if you have such a problem with them, why are you not telling them instead of me?
Because it's a fairly simple idea, if these people had a genuine problem they wanted sorted, wouldn't they then speak to us, instead of telling stories to everyone else.
In my opinion, no they don't have a genuine issue they need sorted, usually you may find that these are people who simply want to try and tarnish the reputation of others over fixing an issue.
A red flag in itself, and for these people I feel truly sorry for them to have to lead such a sad way of life.
Furthermore to this, you may find also, that for the prominent few I know for a fact who are the worst for this behaviour, I have actually helped these people out, above and beyond what anyone else would do, just to have these people turn their backs on us, and try and take advantage of us, so naturally the easy road for these particular people is to go around and tarnish our name, for our small family run business.
Our Family has been calling Gympie home for well over a decade, and some of our clients, we have been looking after for just as long.
Our small Family business frequently sponsors local events, sporting teams/competitors and even held a couple of our own events with all proceeds going to charity. The drift event with Luke Fink that had the whole town raving, we sponsored and helped organise that too.
I myself have been a big part of Torque's Cheap Car Club as Gympie didn't really have a car scene so we thought, let's make one.
My point being, we love our town and our region and for the most part, it's people.
Those who know us well, know how far we will go to help reasonable and good people.
It should also be said, that the opposite is true, if you disrespect us, try to take advantage of us, threaten us or anything in between, you will also get the equal response to your behaviour.
We are proud of our town, and our small business.
We are proud of our team that turns up to do their absolute best for our clients everyday and for that, I thank them.
We are proud of our clients, especially the really good ones that end up being more like friends and family than clients (you ratbags all know who you are).
We bend over backwards for good people, and those are the clients I invest my own time and efforts into.
Our industry is not easy, and yeah believe it or not, we are humans that can make mistakes, we stand by our work, good or bad. Those who truly know us, those who have seen and experienced this know for themselves this to be the truth.
We are proud that despite the bad words and tall stories from a minority of locals, that our small family business manages to get so many cars from a 5 hour radius of our workshop, and mostly for cars that people around here would dream about being able to work on, let alone actually get to build.
As it stands right this very second we have 5 complete performance builds with us that have travelled to us from Brisbane, how many workshops have they driven past to come to us?
We have become synonomous with JDM performance and culture, something you will see becoming more intertwined with our business and branding (thanks for the new artwork Tegan haha), and not just here, but it is refreshing to be attending events and being well recieved by so many people there.
To wrap it all up, don't let the behaviour or words of a minor few, impact any future experience of a local business.
We strive to support local businesses ourselves and do so as often as we are able when finding services we require, another fact you may know about us.
So feel free to like, share, comment your favourite AAA moment, or reel and tell us about a good experiece you've had with our business or even funny moment.
Book in your cars with us so we can look after them also, we have plenty of larger jobs/projects on the go, but would appreciate more small, simple or service works. Please show us your support.
More importantly, if you've had a good experience with our workshop, please take the time to leave us a good Facebook and Google review, it helps more than you think, and would be very much appreciated, thanks for taking the time to read all this if you made it this far.
We will wake up tomorrow, and continue to provide the best service we are able to, and perform the best work we can on your pride and joys.
As for those few that can't help but run their mouths, just Grow Up, try and build something as we have instead of just trying to destroy others work in doing so.
If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking around and supporting us.
