Iron - Clad Ironman

Ironman 4x4 marks 60 years in Australia.

- Matt Raudonikis

JUST AS we are spoilt for choice when it comes to buying a new 4x4 vehicle, there is no shortage of options when it comes to equipping and accessorising that vehicle. There are plenty of companies out there that can sell you quality products for your 4x4, and a few that offer not-so-good quality you should probably stay clear of.

There’s only one company that offers a complete vehicle fit-out – top to bottom and bumper to bumper – all with its own engineered and branded products. Ironman 4x4 doesn’t sell products from other companies; instead, if it sees a need for a product in the marketplace, it engineers its own and either manufactures it or seeks out the right company to source it from. Ironman 4x4 mightn’t be the oldest brand of 4x4 products in Australia, but it’s one that can trace its roots back six decades as it celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2018.

In 1958, Gunter Jacob was making leaf springs for trucks in a backyard shed in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. He soon moved his fledgling business to a workshop at the back of a blacksmithing shop in Oakleigh, where Gunter would help the owner Harry Lark shoe horses in return for the rent on the shed. It was no surprise that Gunter would be working as a springmaker in a blacksmithing workshop; the Jacob family had been in the steel business in Europe since the 1950s, when they were in the scrap-metal trade. In the 1960s in Australia, spring-making was a growing trade as more and more people bought cars and trucks in the growing nation.

Gunter opened a second workshop in Oakleigh and established Jacob Spring Works (JSW) and, four years later, opened Dandenong Spring Works a bit farther east. At that time, 4x4s were mainly trucks like the Chev Blitz and other war-surplus vehicles like Jeeps, while Land Rover was an emerging brand. Using a 4WD for recreational use was almost unheard of.