The Kiwi Mothers Story
The Beginning
We all love a great success story when its on the world stage and it's even better when they include a Kiwi in the mix. Here's one of those tied to our favorite High Performance Car Care Company. By the late eighties MOTHERS in the USA had achieved more than most in the Automotive world, especially given where they had come from starting in 1971 as a family owned and operated business. It was 1988 now and things were about to change again for MOTHERS when by the most unlikely of circumstances the Holloway family met their first ever Kiwi, a typical unassuming but brilliant engineer from Auckland, Mr. Peter Elmer's. Peter was working on his business at the time "Petes Performance" and was dabbling in LPG and other alternative fuels for use in his super high horsepower engines and made a decision to trek over to the States with a buddy and some girlfriends to do the typical car guy OE and check out the car scene. Landing in LA "the guys" soon discovered Hawthrone BLVD and pretty much spent their entire holiday there visiting the numerous Speed Shops. Pete had one other place on his list to visit though as after discovering a small can of MOTHERS polish years earlier he was determined to find its source and so headed off one day alone to visit the MOTHERS Head Office. Upon arrival and in typical Kiwi fashion he had soon talked his way into meeting Jim and his "Mom" Barbara Holloway (The owners of MOTHERS) whom he struck up an immediate friendship with. It was not long after that Jim granted Peter an exclusive license to sell MOTHERS in NZ.
The Chevelle Build
By the end of the first year Peter had exceeded all expectations and the friendship with the Holloways grew to the stage where Pete was working directly with Jim on numerous show car projects like the now famous "Propane Powered" 70 Chevelle, a car Jim had inherited from his father (Company Founder Al Holloway). The Chevelle was built to début at the first ever Power Tour in 2007 so there was a super tight deadline as well as Jim wanting it to be special and like no other. With Pete's background in alternative fuels, he got the job of building the fuel delivery system and flew back to NZ to do the job with famed NZ engine builder Daniel Haigh. Pete and engine were flown back in time to drop it into the car, finish it off and make the deadline. Of course Pete and Jim were not the only ones involved in that build; they had help from buddies Chip Foose, Johnny Omundsun and Co and other high profile notables of the car scene. The finished car was driven cross country by Pete and Jim and made it to the event on time much to the amazement of the Power Tour Event Organizers who thought it was impossible. "Runnin on Propane, you say??" (Insert American drawl here)
Legacy
After that epic build Pete made countless trips to the States to work on projects like the Overhauling TV shows, being an official full time "Show judge" for SEMA, and working with the Space Shuttles Rocket engineers and even execs from GM on some of their top secret projects. Through all this Peter has always kept his feet firmly on the ground, kept the MOTHERS business going here and been a familiar face at car shows and events all over NZ. Until now there are not many who know about his exploits so next time you see the MOTHERS Tent at an event near you, make sure you come over and say hi and be sure to get him to tell you the one about the time Pete and Chip were back in NZ and were being chased by the police!.....hang on a second, we can't tell that story here! Peter Elmer's, MOTHERS Technical Director, and the real deal in automotive car care.
Ray Pratts Story
Early Racing Career
As a teen in the 60s Ray Pratt had always dreamed of going fast, particularly on Motorcycles. He started racing Speedway in 1971 when he was just 16 years old and achieved this by forging his parent's signature below the "fine print" for officials to gain permission to ride; where apparently you had to be 18 to do so. Much to the dismay of his parents (they were dead against him competing) especially when they found out he had actually broken his ankle the first night he raced! He was a determined young man though and went on to be a top rider in his class. Progressing straight into Side Car racing he became very successful and racing at tracks like Western Springs and others all over New Zealand was even undefeated on his 940 Norton at Rosebank Speedway where his dominance was so evident he could still win races even when being started from a half lap down. All this racing cost money though so in 1973 Ray started his first business, "Universal Motorcycles". There he worked building and fixing mostly British bikes to feed his obsession and pay the bills for racing. Racing Vincents and then Nortons mostly with engines he built himself he raced alongside such luminaries as Bill Buckley, Lloyd Drake and Dave Tomkins, ultimately earning him the #2 spot in the country but with the birth of his son Greg he finally slowed down enough to spend time with his wife Paula and enjoy fatherhood.
Business Growth and Harley Davidson
By the mid 80's the business was growing and he had progressed to working on American bikes, specifically Harley Davidson's and that was when the business really took off. Around this time too Rays racing career took off again as well after hearing about the new Drag Strip "Champion Dragway" at Meremere. For this he and Doug Hays build a killer 9 second Harley to compete with and then went on to win multiple titles on the Strip. Not content with just participating in one motorsport however by the late 80s Ray had now taken up Circuit Racing in the form of the "BEARS" Competition race series and for this he had "hand built" a very special Harley motor to power a "Ken Campbell" framed Formula One bike! Ray really had his hands pretty full now and so eventually signed on "Super Bike Champion" Simon Crafer to ride the bike for him and challenge the teams riding the now famous Britton Motorcycles. All this activity got Ray a lot of attention and in 2000 Ray was approached to take on the Harley Davidson Franchise for Auckland. At the time Ray And his team, headed by Dave Anderson were super busy as they had been building thier own range of Customs called "Road Rage Custom Motorcycles", which were built to world class standards and doing well but he could see the opportunity with HD was too good to miss, so always up for a challenge he accepted the offer then proceeded to build one of the biggest Harley Davidson outlets in the Southern hemisphere. By 2016 Auckland Harley Davidson had expanded with the opening of their second store on Auckland's North Shore however the extra work load didn't stop Ray keeping up his Drag Racing program which now included two "Factory Prepped" Harleys raced both here in NZ and Australia fuelling the stores marketing and culture and which proves yet again the truth behind the old adage "Race on Sunday sell on Monday".
The MOTHERS Partnership
One would imagine that would be quite enough for anyone but while most businesses were going into "hibernation" during the first lockdown in 2019, Ray was busy as usual, this time analyzing a unique business proposition with a guy he had been friends with for over 20 years. That friend was Peter Elmer's from MOTHERS NZ. The plan was to combine Rays warehousing, distribution and business expertise with Peter's technical savvy and vision to expand the Brand, and ultimately, the MOTHERS NZ joint venture deal was signed. As you can imagine plans for the MOTHERS brand now with these two guys at the helm is going to be nothing short of exciting but if you're worried about this deal putting an end to Rays racing career, Ray says there will always be time for that, in fact you can see for yourself, it's right there in the fine print!