Eddie Kocwa aiming to put drive back into Australian car manufacturing industry

From a factory just north of Brisbane, two friends are flat out importing and converting US cars for locals demanding bigger rigs.

Eddie Kocwa, CEO of SCD Remanufactured Vehicles, is converting American cars and trucks to right-hand drive. Picture: Tara Croser

Eddie Kocwa’s factory north of Brisbane is buzzing.

Workers are pouring over lines of imported US pickup trucks, removing the left hand steering controls, replacing them with right hand drives and adding accessories.

A large “Manufacturing Aussie Jobs” banner hangs on the wall as Mr Kocwa, the co-owner of SCD Remanufacturerd Vehicles and a former star footballer on the American college circuit, explains his ambitions to rebuild our defunct national car manufacturing sector.

“We don’t make vehicles in Australia any more, but this is the next best thing,” said Mr Kocwa, who has plans to expand the business into electric vehicle manufacturing.

Founded a decade ago with an old school mate Steven Davison, SCD now not only has a large factory at Brendale, with its own paint shop and upholstery department, but a dealership network around the country selling powerful pickups to tradies and grey nomads with luxury caravans.

Mr Kocwa and Mr Davison’s holding company Boss Capital, which includes the manufacturing, distribution and related businesses, will turn over more than a $100m this year.

Mr Kocwa, the 34-year-old son of a blue collar telecommunications worker, wears his economic nationalism on his sleeve.

Last year, he started “Australian Owned”, a certification site for local manufacturers that now has 3000 participating companies including Maleny Dairy and OzKleen, the makers of Shower Power.

“Governments at all levels need to support Australian manufacturing,” he said. “Covid-19 has turned people back to local products. People used to just shop on price but now they are prepared to spend a bit more to buy local.”

Mr Kocwa’s comments came as the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed Wednesday that the economy grew by a robust 0.7 per cent over the three months to June, as the country proved more resilient than expected to lockdowns.

Eddie Kocwa, chief executive of Brendale-based SCD Remanufactured Vehicles, is aiming to reboot the local vehicle manufacturing industry. Picture: Tara Croser

Mr Kocwa’s company, which employs 120 people, also makes a range of accessories, including bullbars and tonneau covers, for its beefed-up imported pickups.

“In Australia, vehicles have traditionally been smaller but people now want to tow bigger caravans and other loads,” he said.

“The market here is not big enough for the major US carmakers to make their own right handed version of these bigger pickups so this has created opportunities for us.”

Mr Kocwa came up with the idea for Australian Owned after a discussion with one of his workers about the iconic clothing brand RM Williams, which then foreign owned.

“This guy was adamant his RM Williams boots were made by an Australian company and that was not right,” he said. “That’s when I got really fired up.”

Billionaire mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest bought the 88-year-old company for a rumoured $190m earlier this year returning it to Australian ownership. RM Williams was previously 82 per cent-owned by L Catterton, a private equity fund backed by luxury conglomerate LVMH, which owns brands including Louis Vuitton, Dom Perignon, Marc Jacobs, TAG Heuer and Guerlain.

Mr Kocwa said Australia now has an opportunity to rebuild its car industry from the ground up, replacing the older dealership structure with a leaner and more adaptive model.

Kocwa is looking at making electric pickups in Australia in partnership with a major international company. “A lot of the big auto companies have been around for 70 years and they are old school,” he said. “The new electric vehicle manufacturers coming up are more like tech companies and they are going to look at new ways of distribution. The attraction of a company like ours is that we are able to control the whole process.”

Mr Kocwa said that despite his humble background he always had big ambitions to progress in the business world. “I was always looking to make money,” he said, “At school, I would fix up old phones and CD players to sell at the local markets.”

Eddie Kocwa in his American football days

Despite completing a biomedical degree at Griffith University, Mr Kocwa said a career in medicine never interested him. “I went back to finish my degree otherwise my grandmother would have been mad,” he said.

A chance meeting with a US university representative at a Griffith University open day led to an interest in American football.

“I had no experience but sent off my resume to the colleges in the US,” he said. “They must have laughed when they received it as college football is very competitive.”

Mr Kocwa played a season with South East Missouri State University, a period he credits with helping him establish a solid network of business contacts in the US. Mr Kocwa said Covid-19 and increasing global trade tensions had reinforced concerns among Australian manufacturers that global supply chains were increasingly vulnerable.

“With our business, we either make it ourselves or obtain it from local suppliers,” he said. “You could have a supplier in India but if there is a sudden lockdown your products could be delayed. Shipping is a mess at the moment.”

Mr Kocwa’s passion for Australian-owned also extends to the digital space.

He has built his own search engine called Lookaroo.com.au to take on Google and Yahoo. “Every time you use Google the money is flowing out of the country,” he said.

He said the site did not collect personal information and all revenue stayed in Australia. It also give priority listing to verified Australian-owned companies.

Originally published as Eddie Kocwa aiming to put drive back into Australian car manufacturing industry