Ron Meatchem

THE man who could rightly be called the father of BMW in Australia passed away on December 1 after a long illness, just shy of his 88th birthday.

Ronald Ian Meatchem, known as RIM – or Ronnie to those closest to him – personified an era of swashbuckling, visionary leadership the like of which we are unlikely to see again.

Renowned for his hard-driving, clear direction and love of a challenge, Mr Meatchem was universally respected by those he worked, came in contact and competed with.

His sharp wit and sometimes sharper tongue, left no one in doubt as to his views. Yet an apparently hard exterior would often part to reveal a man not only dedicated to getting the best out of his team but also highly supportive of those who shared his vision.

The Perth born and raised Meatchem made his way, at age 19, to South Africa and began his career in the parts department of one of his uncle’s car dealerships. After a decade working through various dealership functions he landed in the marketing department of Peugeot.

Having established a reputation for bold moves that impressed his French masters, he moved back into sales management in a dealership before, in 1971, joining Leykor, the South African British Leyland outpost.

Grappling with the myriad challenges presented by substandard product and generations of incompetent management, he assembled a team, at what became Leyland South Africa, that formed a core group he would work with for the rest of his career.

He also established a reputation for holding days-long planning meetings that thrashed out all issues and got everyone on-board, before embarking on ruthless execution of the final plan. A trait that never left him.

For those with longer memories, the ‘team’ included names like Vic Doolan, Murray Difford, John Macdonald, and Geoff Fletcher. All of whom went on to become industry leaders in their own right.

In 1974 Ron and the core of the Leyland team moved on to a struggling BMW South Africa. In short order, they worked on building a brand profile that would make BMW the envy of the South African industry and earn Meatchem hero status in Munich.

The reward came in 1979 when Meatchem was appointed managing director of BMW Australia. Establishing the new direct subsidiary of Munich, he called upon many of the alumni from his South African teams and set about adding an Australia team that would launch many domestic and international automotive careers.

Always a hard-task master but with a keen eye for talent, Meatchem’s BMW Australia became the template of how to go about building a luxury automotive brand.

During his 14-year tenure at the head of BMW Australia, the company grew from sales of less than 1000 per year to easily surpass the then European brand leader Volvo, and on to justifiably claim the position of luxury brand of choice for upwardly mobile Australians.

From legendary product launches, to motorsport lobbying that allowed the teaming of motorsport legends such as Frank Gardner and Jim Richards to deliver victories for the BMW 635i and M3 JPS cars against local V8s, Meatchem was ferocious and unceasing in his advocacy of the BMW brand.

The crowning endorsement of Ron Meatchem’s business vision for BMW Australia was Munich’s approval of the BMW Australia head office in Mulgrave in outer Melbourne in 1992. It was opened by BMW legend, Group Chairman Eberhardt von Keunheim.

He cajoled, prodded, pushed, harangued, encouraged and occasionally bludgeoned all those who could help or who stood in the way. He became a spokesman for the automotive importers group, the motorsport lobby and never ceased crossing swords with politicians who ‘wrong-headedly’ attacked the industry or proposed policies that would do harm.

Amongst the many highlights was the launch, in 1992, of the purpose-built new BMW Australia Headquarters in Mulgrave. Meatchem revelled in the grand opening, an enormous industry event presided over by his hero and mentor, BMW Group Chairman Eberhardt von Keunheim.

The motorsport connection also led to the establishment of the BMW Driver Education Program, based at the purpose-built facility in Norwell, Queensland. Another brand-building innovation,

Retiring from BMW in 1993, Meatchem continued to work on motorsport and industry innovation projects, travelled extensively and never lost his drive for success.

Famous for his verbal grenades, perhaps his most memorable was in reference to a lack of planning  “They have no concept, no plan, no strategy, no philosophy … they are wandering through the trees, lost in the forest”.

Ron Meatchem is survived by his son and daughter and will live long in the memory of all who knew him. Longer still for those who had the privilege of working with him.

A celebration of Ron Meatchem’s life will be held at BMW Southbank, 118 City Road, Southbank at 3:00pm on December 12.

*John Kananghinis was general manager of corporate communication at BMW Australia from 1992 to 2005 and general manager of marketing from 2003-2005.

Addition memories of Ron Meatchem by Murray Difford – especially the back-story of Ron’s career in South Africa before his transfer across the Indian Ocean to run BMW Australia.

Murray Difford was one of Ron’s team of “springboks” – young ambitious car industry executives he cultivated and mentored in South Africa and then brought to Australia.Born a “Sandgroper” in

Western Australia nearly 88 years ago, Ronald Ian Meatchem was a proud Australian. A friend and mentor Ron crossed all our paths literally!

A little background first –

Two very large and successful WA families (Atkinson and Oates) had substantial teaching and farming interests in Western Australia.

After fighting in the Boer War, William Atkinson did not return home but started his fortune’s quest in South Africa and quickly became an established businessman. His brother-in-law, Leonard Oates joined in this success as the business prospered as Atkinson Oates.

In those early years many other family members from WA joined them to manage what was now a car firm with many subsidiary companies scattered throughout the Union and each Australian held a responsible position either as managing director or manager of interrelated companies in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Durban and Nairobi.

Belonging to the Oates family, Ron emigrated to South Africa as a young man and joined this now very sizable Atkinson Oates Motors holding company who were truck, bus and car importers, assemblers and distributors.

He spun his training wheels in their oldest and biggest subsidiary, Sydney Clow & Co, a Chrysler, Peugeot and BMC/Leyland retail group of 19 dealerships.

Ron became marketing manager of Peugeot SA and then in the same role at Leyland SA Car Division factory (previously BMC/BMLC then Leykor) in Kuils River (near Cape Town).

In 1971, Ron, now 42 years old, was a family man who had previously enjoyed playing hockey for the famed Wanderers Club in Johannesburg. Now living in Cape Town, he respectfully joined the ‘old brigade’ management team there and I recall he sometimes enjoyed the traditional executive canteen luncheon silver service with port wine and a toast to the Queen!

Ron established a new team of semi-irresponsible upstarts who could help throw this old organisation – that was in desperate trouble – a lifeline.

Amid the sea, sand and desert that were the factory grounds his new team, run by marketing services manager, Geoff Fletcher, set about fixing the mess of a dreadful manufacturing supply and stock problem.

Vic Doolan (of later BMW fame) was the company finance controller at the time. The new team were driven hard and played hard. We enjoyed the challenge of many new car launches that erupted out of the Leyland tent – Mini Clubman, Triumph 2500/Chicane and Austin Apache and Austin Marina. Using his Australian connection, the new Leyland P76 made an evaluation trip to South Africa but it failed to even complete a road journey from Cape Town to Johannesburg!

Our small but highly enthused team of renegades enjoyed the delights of Cape Town and in particular many late and not-so-sober week nights at the Foresters Arms in Newlands.

The great winelands of Stellenbosch were too a short drive from the factory and many long ‘business’ lunches were to be had at these amazing venues. Our Friday nights were usually spent at the Firemans Arms a very old inner city ghetto venue. Sadly, the responsibilities of drink and drive were never regarded, unlike today!

At this point Ron had met Merrilyn Taylor who worked for Robbs, the main Cape Town dealer, as their Fleet Sales Manager.

Fast forward to 1973 – after a spat with the new MD of Leyland, Ron had left the company and spent time running the Brian Porter MB dealership in Cape Town.

His yearning for the wholesale sector saw him then join Euro Republic Automobile Distributors, the contract assemblers of BMW in Rosslyn, Pretoria as marketing manager. The call to action went out again to his team of reprobates and we, – myself, John Jessup and John Macdonald, re-formed with a few like minded locals already on board to run this somewhat odd contract assembly car plant with this virtually unknown product.

In our first month in Feb 1973 we sold 95 units made up of 1804/2004 (ex Glass body), 3.0L and the new, exciting 520 model.

From this time forward Ron succeeded in gathering around him again a loyal and committed group or team of young people. Ron had infused us all with the new BMW philosophy and there was clearly a great unison in working spirit and ideological focus.

He became a mentor for all who worked for him in those very early BMW days and he commanded the respect of all in his team. He had an incredible drive but retained a normal sense of purpose and was always “one of us”.

The team was bound by this invisible force and Ron always looked toward your ability to find and to self-resolve the problems you may have faced.. You were always expected to think about the issue and provide the desired answer and action.

We put together the early makings of what today has become a very large part of the global BMW confection and we had focussed on establishing a new dealer network, putting BMW into the fleet sales market, ramping up BMW motorcycles (with a factory store), introducing business management and of course an intensive marketing plan!

This latter document has had its successors a million trees later since then as we can all recall!

Many new model launches were the order of the day with a succession of additional 5 Series (E12, E28) models and the new E23 BMW 7 Series – all built in the Rosslyn plant under local content rules.

Under Ron’s guidance, I was privileged to establish a full BMW Motorsport team that successfully competed with two 530’s in Group 1 and then with a purpose built 535 in Manufacturers Challenge series. This racing activity heavily underpinned the philosophy of BMW at the time and was a successful BMW activity for many later years racing 3 Series in South African motorsport.

Ron emulated that programme in Australia with 323’s, JPS and Frank Gardner.

His favourite MD, Count Rudolf von der Schulenburg was our iconic leader (he loved his Theuniskraal Reisling and a cigar) and who went on to run BMW Motorrad in Germany. With a new MD in place, Dr Eberhard von Koerber, Ron had now some more difficult balls to juggle at this time but, now as marketing director with a full operating team, was able to take up the posting to BMW Australia with Vic Doolan getting the SA Marketing Director gig in Ron’s place.

Ron brought some of his old team to Australia in the early 1980’s notably Kris de Jager, Marlene Ketjen, Chris van Wyk, John Macdonald and myself. Geoff Fletcher
left the beautiful city of Cape Town where he was Dealer Principal of Auto Atlantic BMW and crossed the Tasman to help set up BMW New Zealand.

Ron had many challenges in front of him in his life but his work ethic surpassed any personal needs. Sadly this reflected in his personal relationships.

To finish on a lighter note – and one that highlights that statement – is the fact that Kris de Jager and I were going on a planned F1 Motorsport Tour of Europe in 1977.

Ron had just married Merrilyn Taylor but BMW work commitments played havoc
with his honeymoon arrangements. Conveniently we think, he planned this to be in the UK where Kris and I were to be on tour and we were tasked with looking after new bride Merrilyn for a few days! Such is the call of duty!

At this point his Australian history takes over and there are many who cross paths with Ron who could add greatly to the story.

Ron was a friend and mentor in the biggest sense of the word and was that to many, many people in his orbit. A great loss and with plenty of memories.

By John Kananghinis

Ron Meatchem shares an historic BMW with former Premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett.