On the QT: A vacant Ferry Road used car site has a new owner

A WELL-known Gold Coast business identity has gone on a $4 million real estate spending spree, snapping up a caryard on a major arterial road and another nearby property.

TONY Quinn, who was naive to Australian ways when he arrived from Scotland but went on to make a couple of fortunes, has had a wee dabble on some Southport property.

A Quinn company quietly has bought a car yard site at the eastern high point of the high-traffic Ferry Rd, along with an adjoining office building.

The deals are the latest Gold Coast ‘spend’ by the Aberdeen-born Tony, best known as the man who made a mint out of two somewhat contrasting foods — pet food and chocolate — and is hoping to do the same with beef jerky.

This Southport car yard has been sold. Photo by Richard Gosling

In May he settled the $5.6 million purchase of a beachfront apartment in brand-new luxury building SEA at Main Beach.

One of the Meaty Quinn’s Southport buys is on the corner of Winchester St and long has been home to various used-car dealerships.

His other buy, downhill, is tenanted by the Cushman & Wakefield real estate group.

The two properties, believed to have cost around $4 million, are directly opposite a glamorous showroom just completed to house new Bentleys and Maseratis.

Tony’s ambitions for his near 1600sq m holding aren’t known but he’s shown in the past that he can smell a good property deal.

Tony Quinn. Picture: Jerad Williams

Back in 2011 the Quinn name was put on the title, for a payment of $11.75 million, on a cold-storage warehouse at Yatala.

Last year the property was sold for $22 million.

The Tony Quinn story is a colourful one — he grew up in a wooden caravan built by his dad and at five was helping weigh and bag minced meat in the family pet food business.

He turned sign-writer before moving to Perth — the Australian one, that is — and tried, but failed, running a rustproofing business and a video-game machine operation.

At that point he had heard nothing of the term “due diligence”.

He was a quick learner and moved to New Zealand, set up a pet food business, returned to Australia to establish VIP Petfoods, and sold out for $410 million in 2015.

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Photo of the empty car yard on the corner of Winchester St and Ferry Rd, Southport, that also takes in the adjoining office building downhill -- the Cushman & Wakefield one.Photo by Richard Gosling

Then it was on to the Darrell Lea chocolate business, bought from receivers for $25 million, revived using another $30 million, and most of it sold for $200 million earlier this year.

His food bent hasn’t left him — it was revealed in August that he was paying a fellow Scotsman $30 million for a beef-jerky business based in Casino in NSW.

Tony’s hobby is cars, especially those that can be raced, and that might explain his purchase of the Ferry Rd property.

He owns two motor-racing circuits in New Zealand — Hampton Downs south of Auckland and the Highland Motorsport Park, which he built, at Cromwell in the South Island.

Tony Quinn.

It’s at Highland that he’s based two prized possessions — a Michael Schumacher Formula One car and a $3.8 million Aston Martin supercar.

Who knows, maybe he’ll build a display showroom for them on the Ferry Rd land.

AN agent has been appointed to sell the Fiji holiday home of the founder of the Gold Coast’s failed LM funds management group, Peter Drake.

The move’s the culmination of a long journey by the bankruptcy trustees for Peter, who came out of bankruptcy in January, to gain control of the Savusavu house.

The property, which has a tennis court, is on short-term lease to a Fijian company as part of a deal which has required it to make repairs.