Waikato Business News April/May 2021

TRT
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS April/May 2021
23
tion as both a fitter and turner
and precision welder Mr
Carden worked overseas as a
marine engineer before signing
on as a fitter and turner with
Putaruru firm Wilcox Engineering,
leaving them some time
later to work as a petrol and diesel
mechanic for Haven Motors
in Arapuni.
Mr Carden set out on his
own in 1958, while still in his
20s, and founded Southside
Motors and Engineering in
Putaruru, gaining a reputation
as a man who could turn his
In the 60s when we
started you could
not buy anything
because of the war,
could not get the
right equipment to
cart logs. So we got
Internationals
hand to nearly anything, including,
in 1965, engineering work
on the Putaruru Rail Bridge.
In a tightly controlled economy
still struggling with import
restrictions in the aftermath of
war, Mr Carden soon built a
reputation for innovative engineering
based on New Zealand
solutions to problems his customers
encountered.
He recalled: “In the 60s
when we started you could
not buy anything because of
the war, could not get the right
equipment to cart logs. So we
got Internationals [trucks] and
we repowered them and that
meant putting in engines, gearboxes,
diffs, axles and air brakes
and then getting the GVW [the
total weight of the truck and
payload] right. They went for
years and there’s still some of
those old trucks out there.”
Mr Carden’s involvement in
what was to become TRT started
when two Cambridge men, Jim
Ross and Norm Todd, set up a
repair shop in Cambridge specialising
in turning vehicles into
utes. Another local, Jack Tidd,
who assembled crane carriers,
bought into the business.
Mr Tidd had for some time
been watching Mr Carden, who
was also engineering crane
carriers, often on old Bedford
trucks.
As Mr Carden’s son, Bruce,
explained in an interview with
NZ Trucking: “Dad was making
significant waves building
crane carriers. Jack Tidd was
in the same business. The difference
was that Jack assembled
his from imported components
and Dad built his own
from scratch and along with it
a reputation for innovation.”
In 1967, Mr Carden accepted
an invitation to join forces as
a 30-percent shareholder and
workshop manager for Jack
Tidd – Ross Todd Ltd, specialising
in crane carrier manufacture.
It was the perfect fit for the
inventive engineer and he was
to prove instrumental in the
company’s long-term success.
However, an early test of Mr
Carden’s ingenuity in the new
partnership had nothing to do
with the transport industry and
came when designers of the
proposed 8.8-km long Kaimai
railway tunnel in 1970 put out
a call for curved support beams.
Mr Carden figured out how
to bend the steel beams supporting
the tunnel.
He built a machine to do the
job and produced 8000 beams
in the eight years of the project.
The solution put Jack Tidd-
Ross Todd Ltd on the engineering
map.
However, it was the truck
and crane business that held
his attention and during Mr
Carden’s engineering career the
company achieved a number of
breakthroughs for the NZ truck
and crane industry including
developing tag axles, logging
jinkers, the Tidd Crane Carrier,
Tidd Hydrasteer, a hydraulic
house mover, and platform
trailers.
However, while Mr Carden
Continued on page 25
Dave Carden steps down from TRT
Board after 54 years of leadership
207 of Dave’s TIDD Crane carriers were built for the NZ Market
LEADERS IN ELECTRIC AND
HYDRAULIC POWER TRANSMISSION
Dave Carden steps down from TRT
Board after 54 years of leadership
Dana SAC NZ Ltd are proud to be
associated with TRT and wish to
congratulate Dave on his retirement.
TIDD Logging Jinkers, one of the original Carden innovations,
with hundreds manufactured for NZ, Australi and PNG
9 Bishop Croke Place, Auckland | P: 09 250 0050
5 Birmingham Drive, Christchurch | P: 03 338 3916
dana-industrial.com