to Business
“There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens
and lets the future in.”
Graham Greene, Author of The Power and the Glory
One of my mother’s hens stopped laying eggs – inexplicably. She became fatter and heavier every day. People said there was a blockage. Great was our excitement when my mother reluctantly gave the hen to us three young Pretorius brothers to sell for pocket money. But the excitement was short-lived – my two brothers, Hennie and Koos aged eleven and nine, were too shy to sell the abnormally heavy hen. Being the little one in the family at that stage and only five years old, I was probably too young to be embarrassed. Without any hesitation I put the hen in a basket and walked the two blocks to the butchery. Undaunted, I convinced the butcher to buy the hen for two shillings. Extremely pleased with my deal I returned home with the coins tinkling in my pocket.
The feeling of satisfaction that I experienced that day may have planted the seed for my future interest in doing business. Perhaps it was there in the dusty streets of Bultfontein that the marketing bug first bit me – but I would only realise it much later in life.
1953
Bultfontein, Free State
Although I was born in the eastern Free State village of Steynsrus, my first childhood memory is a clear picture of our stone house next to the Bultfontein High School. My father, after whom I am named, was appointed there as headmaster in 1952. At the time, Bultfontein was a typical rural Free State town, about 100 km north-west of Bloemfontein, and surrounded by similar towns such as Hoopstad, Hertzogville, Dealesville and Brandfort. The local community was only a few hundred strong and the maize farmers in the surrounding areas played a prominent role. The few businesses in town were largely owned by “Afrikaner Jews” like the Gritzman and Berolowitz families. If memory does not fail me, we only had one tarred road, which was the main street. That was where Central Garage, the General Motors dealership, was located. I often peered through the showroom window, admiring the shining new Chevrolets and dreaming about owning one someday.
Cars were my childhood passion. I was greatly influenced by my eldest brother Hennie. From a young age, he was the enthusiastic (and unauthorised) driver of my father’s De Soto and later, our two-tone, grey-and-blue 1956 Chevrolet. I can recall the exhilaration when, after waiting anxiously for months, we took delivery of the new car. With bated breath I sat on the front steps, never taking my eyes off the road. Slowly, after what felt like hours, a car emerged in the distance. I ran to the gate. At last, the car I had been dreaming of had arrived! I was eight years old.
My plans for the future were already clear at that age – I wanted to become a car designer one day. Despite lacking any artistic talent, I spent hours designing my dream cars. By the time I was 11 I had compiled a scrapbook of my favourite cars. I could not wait for Saturday afternoons to help Hennie wash my dad’s Chev, and it was pure bliss the day we painted all the engine components in different colours! Considering how strict my father was, it is a miracle that he did not interfere and allowed us to continue.
Around this time we left Bultfontein’s dusty roads behind and relocated to Bloemfontein where my father was appointed headmaster of Wilgehof Primary School. Enormous excitement prevailed when my mother got her first car, a 1959 Renault Dauphine. For me it was the beginning of a new phase in my life as a fanatical Renault enthusiast. These distinctive French cars fascinated me from day one with their unique styling and gutsy performance. Many afternoons after school I would pedal all the way to the Renault dealer, Drakenstein Motors. Oom Jan van Niekerk understood my passion and allowed me to sit in the latest models, fantasising. For me there was nothing more alluring than the distinctive smell of new leather. Unbeknown to me then, my enthusiasm for Renault would eventually open the door to my career in the motor industry.
Around the same time that my love affair with Renault began, my interest in motor sport also started to develop. My friend Albert Weideman and I built race tracks in our backyard and raced our Dinky Toy cars in a great spirit of competition. At night I dreamed of the great racing drivers of that time – of Juan Manuel Fangio, Stirling Moss and Graham Hill.
When I was 15 my father was promoted to inspector of schools and we moved to Bethlehem. Two exciting things happened. My new friends Theo Harris and James Keulder shared my passion for cars. We spent many hours dreaming about how we would one day become famous racing drivers. Then it dawned on us that a go-kart would be the ideal way to start our racing careers. We painstakingly designed our own dream go-kart, spent all our pocket money on a second-hand lawnmower engine and started to weld the frame together in Theo’s dad’s garage. We spent many weeks trying to work out the gearbox and drive train configuration, but in the end our engineering skills were found wanting. Ultimately a lack of funds prevented us completing this ambitious project.
The second exciting event was inheriting my brother Koos’s old grey Ovilam 50 cc motorcycle. Although it was not by any stretch of the imagination a state-of-the-art machine, it heralded the start of my life-long love for motorcycles. At that stage the gearbox only had one gear that worked – third gear. I could only push-start it on steep descents – but that produced enough adrenalin to hook me for life. Racing down Eureka Street with the wind in my hair produced a tremendous thrill. For his 16th birthday, Theo received a brand-new dark-blue Honda 50 Sport, with its exhaust at an angle. It had a 4-stroke engine that revved freely to 8 000 rpm – the ultimate! The moment I laid eyes on it, I visualised myself on a red one.
I spent my last two years of school in Kroonstad when my father was transferred there. It was two wonderful years at Kroonstad High, or the Blue School, as it was commonly known at that time. Hennie was now a teacher in Welkom, and thanks to his generosity, I was the owner of a second-hand 50 cc Kreidler Florette, with all three gears in working order! Trips to school became very competitive events and usually resulted in races between me and my friends Pierre Joubert, on his Garelli, and Johannes Pretorius, on his Puch. I can still recall every kink in the road lined with massive willow trees next to the False River, with a few hazardous traffic circles. Of course we came off occasionally, but thankfully the damage was mostly limited to bruised egos. Despite my best efforts, Pierre usually got the better of us.
Hennie also introduced me to the Kyalami race track. How can I ever forget the exhilaration of attending my first nine-hour endurance race – the deafening sound of high revving engines, the overpowering smell of racing fuel, the cheering crowd, the entire adventure. The fearless racing drivers thrusting their cars around the bends instantly became my heroes. The intense rivalry between the Renaults, Alfa Romeos and Fords was all-absorbing. My adrenaline was pumping. I will also never forget that afterwards, on the Sunday morning, we had to pick up dozens of soft-drink bottles to trade for petrol money at cafes on our way back to Kroonstad. Hennie’s white 1961 Renault Dauphine, which he inherited from my mother, looked stunning with its wide wheels and sports exhaust. We felt like kings of the road. The fact that it only had a tiny 850 cc engine never bothered us.
During my matric year in 1965 I seriously started contemplating my future career. Because of my passion for cars, I was determined to join the motor industry. My teachers’, parents’ and my own frame of reference were all equally limited. The only direction we could identify was for me to study mechanical engineering. As the tuition was unaffordable, I applied for a bursary at Iscor. Due to my good academic record it was awarded and because I was not conscripted for military service, I could start my studies at the University of Pretoria in 1966. A condition to the bursary was that I had to study there and that I would have to work for Iscor for at least three years, a small sacrifice to achieve my ultimate goal.
It is with gratitude in my heart that I think back on my childhood years. I grew up in a home where my father had all the authority and the principles were strictly Calvinist. Christian norms and values were imprinted on us. There was no confusion between right and wrong. My father applied discipline consistently and as children we always knew where we stood with him. He was a well-read, intelligent man, who reached great heights in his field because of his integrity, competence and dedication. His passion was education. He was serious about his vocation and his sense of duty was an inspiration.