Brian’s Auto Centre founder Brian Jensen remembered as hard worker who did everything he could for customers
Tributes have been paid to the popular founder of Brian’s Auto Centre, with mourners hearing how the car-lover never took a holiday from his beloved business. FULL STORY
Gold Coast
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Tributes have been paid to Brian Jensen, the eponymous founder of Brian’s Auto Centre in Miami, who died last week at the age of 74.
Mr Jensen, who began the renowned Gold Coast Highway service centre with long-term business partner Geoff ‘Smoky’ Simons in the 1970s, was remembered at a funeral service on Monday as a hard worker who loved cars, telling a joke and swimming at the Miami pool.
“Brian knew how to work hard. He also knew how to play hard,” mourners at the Calvary Catholic Church in Miami heard.
“He loved a gathering, loved a beverage, loved telling a joke.”
Mr Jensen was born in Beechworth, Victoria, in 1948, before moving to the Gold Coast with his family when he was 16.
He worked a number of jobs including furniture making, plumbing and radio antennae installation.
However mourners were told his true love was cars – “the motors that drove them and the best and most cost effective ways to make them go as quickly as possible” – and he soon found a way to make money from them, opening a wreckers business with Mr Simons in 1974.
In 1979 they purchased the Total Service Station on the Highway for $135,000 – mourners were told they “scrimped and saved” to pay for it – and the Gold Coast’s best-loved service centre was born.
Despite his success, mourners heard Mr Jensen, who unknown to most was a big supporter of St Vincent De Paul, didn’t wear “flashy clothes, drive in a flashy car, live in a flashy house.”
“He didn’t need to tell you how good he was or what he had,” the funeral was told. “He didn’t waste a lot of words.
“But he did enjoy a chat.”
Mr Jensen’s philosophy was “providing customers with anything and everything he could, from chocolate bars to engine rebuilds”, and it was said that he never took a holiday.
“Brian had one day off a year,” mourners heard. “And it happened to coincide with a particular car race that was held in western NSW, around 6.2km of flat, mountainous curvy road with a panoramic view at the top and a massive straight at the bottom. He would sit and watch every minute of Bathurst and soak it up like a sponge. And then the next day back to work, for the next 364 days.”
Mr Jensen met wife Karen in Tamworth when he was 18, and they married in 1974.
He suffered ill health in recent years, developing throat cancer and having a laryngectomy.
Mrs Jensen was praised at the funeral service both for her vital contribution to the business and her dedicated care for her husband.
That love and dedication continued until Mr Jensen’s his final days, which thanks to her he was able to spend at his beloved Brian’s Auto Centre.
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