ownerdriver.com.au AUGUST 2019 21
T
HOSE FAMILIAR with my writing know
how much I love to start my stories on a
weird tangent that normally only vaguely
relates to the story that follows. Well
I’m going to disappoint here and take a
tangent that directly relates to the story.
That tangent is down the path of Greek
mythology.
Specifically, we will be talking about
the mythical creature that shares its name with
Ian Irvin’s Canberra-based company Phoenix
Trucking. In Greek mythology the phoenix is
a bird that cyclically regenerates (fancy words
for ‘gets reborn over and over’). It’s written that
the phoenix obtains new life by rising from the
ashes of its predecessor. It’s this basic premise
that drove Ian to name his first venture into road
transport back in 2004 – Phoenix Trucking Co.
For the record it’s also reported the phoenix
dies in ‘a show of flames and combustion’ before
regeneration, but that’s only every 500 years, so we
will wait on that one.
Back to Ian and the formation of Phoenix
Trucking. While the company now runs a small
fleet of stunning Australian-built Kenworth
cab-overs, it started out as just one young guy
trying to make a go of it with a second-hand CH
Mack car carrier.
“I’d made the decision to go into business; went
against all the people that said I was mad,” Ian
recalls when thinking back to his first truck.
Ian wanted a name for the company that meant
something to him, and at that time in his life
he was going through a lot of changes in his
life. A recent divorce and a change of direction
in his career, the idea of rising from the ashes
and restarting seemed to align strongly with the
mythology behind the phoenix name.
Ian ref lects on those early days with a sense
of humour. Admitting he was a little young and
naïve, thinking he would get into trucking and
make millions.
“From the depths of despair from my divorce;
rising from the ashes, new me, new life, big time
businessman and all that ... it didn’t work out like
that at all,” he says.
“But that was the basis for the phoenix.”
He also adds that while a phoenix rises from
the ashes in all its glory, in reality he spent those
early days “running flat-out with my arse on fire”.Cars and beyond
“Flat out” has basically been how Ian has
grown the business from day dot. Having left
school to become a mechanic, Ian’s desire to get
behind the wheel found him driving for a local
farmer, delivering product to farms around
the Canberra and Bega areas before getting hishighway driving experience with his friend and
mentor Barry Moffat.
Ian spent several years with Barry until, in 2004,
the opportunity came up to start his own business
with the purchase of a car carrying operation.
Phoenix Trucking Co hauled its first load of cars
into Bega on November 5, 2004. For the next few
years Ian and his one truck f leet went from a local
car carrier to an interstate car carrier as he battled
the turbulent times and adjusted the company
model as needed.
The decline in the car market and soaring fuel
prices eventually lead Ian to pull the pin on car
carrying and chase work elsewhere. This time the
phoenix regenerated into a near new Kenworth
K104, pulling trailers for another local outfit,
Bobbins Transport.
Ian spent a year as a subbie at Bobbins where he
admits he learnt so much.
“I’m not a businessman but I like to learn,
and I learnt so much from Neville (Bobbin); the
approach to customers, managing bad situations
and stuff like that.”
After a year Ian made the decision that would
really be the basis for Phoenix Trucking as it
stands now.
In 2009 he purchased a second-hand drop deck
trailer to go behind his K104 and set about taking
any work that would fit on his trailer – from