1980-2000

• In 1980 Altranz acquired the CD Bonney and LW Bonney & Sons flour fleets, leaving Calven to try his hand at a few different things including a sun visor and truck accessory business and helping his old friend Alan Lewis build up his business Alert Engineering.

• Then in 1984, on a chance visit to the Bonney’s yard he left owning the family business. Buying it from his father and Uncle Selwyn who had decided that it was time to retire.

• There were three trucks – a Mack semi and trailer, a TM Bedford 8-wheeler with a three-axle trailer and an International six-wheeler and three-axle trailer, based East Tamaki still carting coal, sand and aggregate.

• On day one Calven added a fourth truck an International Paystar to the fleet, which in later years became one of New Zealand’s first race trucks.

• Naturally entrepreneurial Calven, worked day and night to build the business and took advantage of the changing industry landscape.

• Innovation had always been a key differentiator for Bonney’s they were the first to put flour into tankers in 1964 and they would now be first to put sugar into pneumatic tankers in the 1980s.