Mr Woodley is best remembered for his entrepreneurship that took his family’s Tamworth-based 104-year-old automotive dealership businesses – under the Woodleys Motors banner – to encompass franchises representing 13 brands and becoming one of the town’s biggest employers.

Although his automotive dealerships gave him a high public profile in regional and urban Australia, Mr Woodley had a strong affinity to the community and unselfishly supported local projects, notably starting a movement against the region’s growing drug problem.

Warren Woodley
Image source: 7News New England

He started organising anti-drug forums and hosting public gatherings, leading to him becoming the Chair of Australian Cities Against Drugs, to speak at the United Nations International ‘Say No To Drugs’ Conference in Sweden and with wife Lorraine, funded the forum for the prevention of drug abuse and became the president of the national body.

He also started the Tamworth branch of Violence Against Women after the Anita Coby rape and murder case.

In speaking with GoAutoNews Premium, Warren’s son and now business managing director Mark Woodley said in remembering his father, one of the things that made him proud “was the times when he stood up for what really mattered and put his reputation on the line, for what he thought was right and also, what was right for others.”

“Dad and Mum together, did what we all should do from time to time …. acknowledge an issue, either in the community or with someone personally, and do your best to address it and fix it or improve it.”

Mark Woodley said that it is not a cliché to say that behind a great man is a great woman: “his darling Lorraine.”

“Mum was the love of his life. She fully supported everything he did,” he said.

“Dad had the drive and front that was complemented by Mum with her astute secretarial and banking skills.”

Mr Woodley said his father had “a great unwavering Christian faith which guided him all his life with all his endeavours.”

He said that his mother said “it was a faith of what God wanted us to do, what God told us to do.”
In his busy and industrious career, that started in his father’s car business in the town in the 1950s, Mr Woodley also started and nurtured five businesses including BBQ’s Galore, Tuff & Tidy School and Uniform Wear and Tamworth Monogramming.

But the core of his business life was in automotive.

Born in 1937, to Neville and Sylvia Woodley, Warren Walter Henry Woodley was the great grandson of a Cornishman who came to mine gold at Nundle in the 1850’s, whose son Harry Woodley moved from Nundle to Tamworth and started Woodley’s Car Trimmers.

Warren was the younger brother to Ted and older brother of Caroline.

In 1943 Warren started school at Tamworth Public and was a good long-distance runner.

As a boy he enjoyed rabbit trapping with his best friend Rob McCook, around the hills of Tamworth (where the TAFE is now located) and also at Wallabadah, where his grandparents lived.

He finished school at the old Tamworth High School in East Tamworth with Mark Woodley stating that “his story was of being sick of school, climbing out of the first floor window, running down to his Dad’s workshop, telling him he was finished with school and that he didn’t want to go back.”

“His Dad said OK if that’s the case, he’d put him to work immediately as a motor trimmer, handed him a broom and told him to sweep the floor.”

“Later on, Mum always said that his trade was fabulous as he could expertly take her dresses up while she stood on the kitchen table.”

Like all young men in the 1950s Dad was called up for National Service and proceeded to Sydney to complete his training. He was notified that his father had suffered a heart attack and was required to come home to help run the business, leading to him securing a release from the Army.

So at age18, he began assisting his father in the running of Woodley’s Motor Trimming. They decided to start a small smash repair and spray painting section.

Dad’s father Neville died in April 1968 and Warren took over the business.

He then pursued new paths for the business. First in vehicle safety and showcasing seat belts by stringing a car on its nose from a tripod mounted in the centre of the town.

He then approached Volvo Australia in 1970 and explained that his business had a reputation in the local region for safety and asked would they consider him as a dealer. They accepted and he caught a train to Sydney, drove a new Volvo back and parked it at the front of the workshop.

Over the next 30 years Warren expanded Woodley’s Motors significantly, overcoming floods, droughts and financial crises. He added the Mazda, Honda and Hyundai and Jeep brands to the Volvo franchise.

The business had outgrown the original Peel Street premises so it moved to its present site in Marius Street.

“In the early 1970’s Dad branched out again with the opening of Woodley’s Motor Body Works in Taminda, taking the small smash repairs section and building it into another large business.

“He also opened a used car yard in West Tamworth with Robert Green.”

In 2000 Dad decided it was time to retire from Woodley’s and went through the process of passing it on to his son Mark and John Riolo.

Mr Woodley said his father “retired from work but he didn’t retire from working.”

He involved himself in the restoration of local buildings and in the local history, commissioning the writing and publishing of three books detailing the history of his family.

By Neil Dowling