Sprint Auto Parts began as a single auto parts store in 1984 and subsequently grew into a multi-State network of stores in South Australia, regional Victoria, New South Wales and Northern Territory.
The growth of Sprint goes back to the early 1980s. In those days Sprint Auto Parts co-founder, Chas Calandro, was pumping petrol at a service station owned by Rick King. In 1984, 28-year-old Chas was given the opportunity to go into the automotive parts business with Rick, purchasing a small trade-based store known as Spare Parts Supplies. It was a tiny, 200 sq.m showroom and office at 189 Bridge Road, Ingle Farm in Adelaide, which was immediately renamed Sprint Auto Parts on the takeover and transformed into a retail and trade store.
In September 1987, Chas bought out Rick’s share of the business. To raise the funds needed for the buyout, Chas’s parents went guarantors on a loan for him to enable the buyout to happen, something Chas said was a huge risk, given that interest rates were high, and he had no real idea of dealing with finance in those early days.
Chas said Julie was cleaning up some old filing cabinets from those early days when she came across the original business sale note: “The deal was all hand written by Rick,” Chas said. “It was beautiful. He was like my second dad, but he has now passed away.”
After the buyout, Julie who was working for a real estate group, left and went to work at Sprint. Chas and Julie had a long friendship with Rick who was Master of Ceremonies at their wedding in August 1985.
On October 19, 1987, or Black Tuesday as it came to be known, the Australian share market crashed. Black Tuesday's 25 per cent slump was unprecedented. Nevertheless, Sprint Auto continued on, and Chas and Julie spent the next six years building the business at Ingle Farm.
Forever the positive thinker, in the late 1980s when the recession hit, Chas started to expand Sprint. The first step in this expansion was a shop at Smithfield, and then opened specialised carburettor shops at the rear of both the Smithfield and Ingle Farm premises.
These were tough times to be in business. Then Federal Treasurer, Paul Keating, immortalised how tough times were on November 29, 1990 when he described the economic climate as: “This is the recession we had to have.”
There were business failures, bankruptcies, negative equity, falling investment and mounting unemployed. All the debt-financed business carpetbaggers were put out of commission, and there were double-digit interest rates.
This didn’t stop Chas and Julie. In the early 1990s their expansion continued, and a new store was opened at Holden Hill. Then in 1992 the Auto Parts store at Bridge Road, Ingle Farm location was relocated to a larger premise at 891 Main North Road, Pooraka, with the carburettor workshop remaining at Bridge Road and expanding to the whole of the premises.
The next shop was on Salisbury Highway in Salisbury. In 1994, two more shops were opened at Darlington and Kilkenny. By the end of the decade Sprint Auto had grown to 11 stores, and then the franchising began.
“Most of the stores were in metropolitan Adelaide, with a sprinkling elsewhere, including Broken Hill and Mildura,” Chas said.
Success brings with it petty jealousies and competitors were forecasting impending financial gloom and doom for Sprint. For Chas and Julie, it seemed to be a matter of “rumour has it”. In fact, rumours about the financial stability of their Sprint Auto Parts business have been circulating since 1987, as long as Chas and Julie have been in business.
Asked what he thought of this, Chas wasn’t fazed: “I didn’t care about the rumours,” he said. “We just kept expanding, opening more stores and franchising.
“And because we kept on growing, we were always struggling to pay our bills,” Chas explained.
“There were constant rumours that we were going broke, but while people were saying this, we kept on growing.”
When asked about how he was treated by competitors, and there were a few, Chas said they all tried to give him grief: “Our competitors would even set up shop alongside us.”
The first pricing war he remembers happened about 25 years ago, and was over oil filters: “A competitor discounted the price of oil filters, so we fought back and sold the same product for $3.95. At the time we were paying $4.10 for each one.
“Nowadays, pricing wars seem to be the norm.”
Chas said the reason for the Sprint expansion, and eventual franchising, was that he was into motor sport racing – Sprint cars - and had engaged an American driver to come over and drive his car.
“His family owned a chain of music stores in Seattle, and he said to me: ‘Chas why don’t you just start another store somewhere else? Maybe add another two or three?’
“Even though we had opened 11 stores of our own, cash flow was always a problem, and we were always on the edge due to the expansion and we were struggling to pay our bills.”
Chas and Julie adopted a simple outlook on business. “As far as we were concerned, we started with minimal outlay, so we had little to lose.
“But we would like to say a big thank you to our suppliers and financers who supported us, and in turn I can say we never let them down.”
Over time as business increased, Sprint Auto moved first to Pooraka then onto the Mawson Lakes Head Office and distribution centre. Sprint now has 39 stores from Metropolitan Aberfoyle Park to Wudinna in the Eyre Peninsula. Mildura in Victoria and Broken Hill in New South Wales.
It must have been quite a shock for the rumour mongers when in June 2009, Sprint opened its 5000 square metre premises, which includes the Sprint Auto Parts Distribution and Administration Centre, at Mawson Lakes. From the purchase of the land to completion took three years. The warehouse and offices cover 3350 square metres, but the total building covers 5000 square metres, which was planning for future growth.
At the official opening of the building, Chas credited the success of his family business to several factors, including support from his family, wife Julie and daughter Lauren who also worked in the business for several years.
Other factors Chas cited included having a competitive spirit, which drove him to be the best; having goals, and working with a great support team of staff who stuck with him through the good times and the tough times.
At the opening, Chas singled out “two great people” who he said played a major part in the success of Sprint Auto: “Peter Hiley, General Manager operations (and prior to the takeover was General Manager) a friend and staff member for 17 years, and administration manager Tammy Williamson who waited 21 years for an office with a window.”
Chas was a successful Sprint Car and Speed Car racer, winning two South Australian titles, and several winning places interstate. He ran the World Series around Australia, and had a short driving stint in America.
‘Rick (King) taught me how to race stock cars, but I didn’t like a roof over my head, so turned to Sprint Car racing,” he said.
In 2000 Chas gave up Sprint Car racing, and took up farming. He has a farm at Yattalunga where he grows hay.
Julie let me in on a secret: Chas is his speedway racing name, and his real name is Carmine, but nobody knows him as anything other than Chas.
A South Australian based business, Sprint now has 39 stores including franchises, which are open seven days a week, employs about 200 staff across the network. Not bad for a business that had humble beginnings.
SALE PROCESS
The sale of Sprint to Bapcor was a sale process with a long gestation period. In fact, Chas couldn’t remember exactly how long the sale process took, but thought it was about five years from the time of his first contact with Automotive Brands Group in December 2010, then in July 2013, Metcash Automotive made contact.
Ultimately the sale went through in May 2016 to Bapcor, which had by then taken over Automotive Brands Group. Sprint is now part of Bapcor’s retail and service segment that distributes parts and accessories from a wide variety of brands via a network of over 500 company owned and franchise stores. These stores include the premium retail channel of Autobarn as well as Autopro and Opposite Lock.
As part of the sale to Bapcor, Chas agreed to stay on as General Manager for two years, but Julie retired. Chas said when he retires he will go farming full time, growing hay at their Yattalunga property, which he has done since 2001. “It sounds boring but it’s not, there is always some farm machinery to tinker with", he said.
Interviewed November 2017