Easy Rider: Deus Ex Machina, custom motorcycles, Sydney

• Stuart Ridley
• 13 November 2007
• Page 1 of 2 : single page

Rod Hunter and Dare Jennings, Deus Ex Machina. Photo credit: Anthony Geernaert

Why Deus ex Machina? What is it about the spirit or deity in the machine that you’re so passionate about?
Dare: Deus ex Machina has two meanings. One is a literary term that comes from Greek theatre: they had these free-form plots and if the plots were breaking down and not working well, they had a mechanical device that allowed them to lower a god onto the stage who would change everything. It was a convoluted way to fix a plot. But I like the name because it literally means “god is from the machine” or “god is in the machine.” So the second meaning is the reverence or respect we have for the machine.
It’s the most pretentious name for a bike shop ever, but it challenges people to work out how to say it. My theory is that it is better they are talking about it than not. It’s a great name: it means god, it has ‘sex machine’ in it, and it has all these implications.

Let’s talk about sex machines. What was the first bike that you fell in love with?
Rod: A 1954 Triumph twin-speed that I used to ride to school back in the 70s. I bought it from an elderly man and I loved it. There are two versions of the SR: the TT500s and an off-road dirt bike. I can remember a mate at school bought one and my old Triumph would still beat it up the hill. It was such a great old bike.
Dare: When I was a rebellious teenager I read Hunter S Thompson’s book on the Hells Angels gang when it first came out, and I heard all the kids at school talking about these mythical WWII surplus Harley Davidsons you could buy. Then one day I saw this hoodlum riding down the street with ape hangers on a WWII Harley and I was so enamoured with it I bought it off him straight away.

So now you’re helping other people find that love. How did Deus originate?
Dare: I was in my 50s and I wanted to learn something new. When I sold Mambo I travelled, and in Japan I saw an interesting bike culture of young guys referencing classic details from the 1950s. I used to stand on the street corners and see these bikes, and every one of them was interesting. It was a very Japanese obsession with detail. I came back to Rod and said, “I think this is interesting.”
Rod: Dare had always been an avid motorcycle enthusiast, and was a customer at my other shops for many years. Probably going back about three years, he said he’d noticed the growth of the custom bike market in Japan, and how different those bikes looked to bikes in Australia or anywhere else in the world. We went to Japan and spent three or four days on the streets looking at the bikes and poking around.
Dare: I had a huge respect for Rod, his business, history, and the stuff he knew, and I figured this was a short-cut to what he knew, and I could sit at his feet and learn about it. Equally, I said to Rod that he had great motorcycle shops but they could never be more than that. Rod could bring the motorcycle world to me and I could bring the idea of how to build a brand and put the elements together.
Rod: Then when we got back from Japan, Taka got involved. (Taka Aoyama runs the modification side of the business.)
Dare: Taka was amazing and through him we had a complete connection back to the Japanese culture. Because all the people we deal with are small companies, they tend not to like to deal with people from outside. But Taka could go and win them over, and we could get access to these things.
Rod: That wouldn’t have happened if we had just sent emails to these Japanese companies requesting parts. They would have ignored us and not taken us seriously.
Dare: Taka had lived in Australia and trained as an SR400 mechanic here. If we’d designed him, we couldn’t have found a better person.

In the early stages, I guess chaos played a big part?
Dare: In a lot of ways chaos is good, because people are excited about what you’re doing: you’re hitting a nerve and getting a response. Then the process must be to take that enthusiasm and follow through.

What are some of the things you do to channel that enthusiasm into something workable?
Dare: You must throw things out, allow them to be, and follow them through. Then you have to keep adding things to them as well so you’re not a one-trick pony. The good thing about Deus that we hear from our customers is that there is always something new, that we have challenged their preconceptions about what we do.
Rod: We reward our people for performance, for being part of the development and growth of the company. Everyone that works for us is here because they want to be part of it. We need the influence of the younger people to drive us forward.

What did you learn from previous lives – other businesses, other working partnerships – that helped you with Deus?
Rod: Just finding the right people. Business is a team effort, and it’s tough finding the right people in the right spots. The key people drive the enthusiasm.

How would you describe your business approach?
Rod: Dare’s background is totally different to mine. I have been controlled by suppliers, and everything is totally price-driven. Dare’s background is from Mambo, creating a product and having complete control over pricing structure. With the bikes we build, there is a little bike that retails at a Yamaha shop for $6000, and we sell it for $18,000 or $19,000 with the value-add and passion of the Deus brand.
Dare: There is a great adage that there are two kinds of businesses: there are those that compete on price; and there are those that compete on ideas, then you can name your own price. I think that was our conversation: “Let’s sell motorcycles, but infuse them with this whole other culture, so people will be happy to get involved and not be nervous.”

Deus is very much about passion and individuality. How do you communicate that to your customers?
Rod: We’ve got to challenge the consumer, and that’s what we do downstairs in our showroom. People come in after being told about the store or the website. They look, and think, “What’s going on?” Then people explore.
Dare: It’s sad to say that this is a store you would find in Melbourne, not Sydney. Melbourne is far more passionate about what it does, and real estate prices are way cheaper. You can have half an idea, rent a shop for not much, and have a crack at it. Whereas in Sydney, if you aren’t making money in the first 10 minutes you’ll go broke because of the rents. On top of that, everyone in Sydney’s at home eating baked beans because they’re stuck with mortgages, but in Melbourne, everyone is out shopping.
Rod: And the building, when you walk into it, is warehouse style. There’s not as much retail space in Melbourne.
Dare: A PR woman I’ve known for years came in for the first time recently and said that the store was ‘real’. There were things going on: there was fashion, mechanics, food being cooked, kids…
Rod: Every day downstairs is a fun place to be in. It’s not like going to work.