Revival tour for Aussie OKA

Dean Robinson clearly remembers when he saw his first OKA.

It was three decades ago, and the sight of the OKA XT 12-seater tour bus at the intersection of Leach Highway and North Lake Road was a revelation.

The vehicle, about twice the size of a regular four-wheel drive, captivated Mr Robinson, a self-professed “car guy” whose off-road forays were frequently hampered by vehicles with mediocre suspension and loadbearing.

The only time he could remember seeing anything like the OKA was in 1980, when he drove armoured vehicles for the Australian Defence Force.

Mr Robinson said the OKA, idling in traffic in Willagee, had a hypnotising effect.

“I sat there at the lights staring at this thing, thinking how ugly it was and wondering what it was,” he said.

Appearances aside, Mr Robinson soon became obsessed with the OKA, at one point contemplating modifying his own truck to roughly match its specification.

Instead, he visited OKA’s manufacturing floor in Bibra Lake to test drive the vehicle, which only confirmed his opinion.

“If you knew anything about four-wheel driving, you looked at the suspension [and] the chassis, it added up; it made perfect sense,” Mr Robinson said.

By the time he was ready to commit to a purchase it was 2004, and the workshop had ceased production, however.

Unfazed, he parted with a substantial sum to buy a second-hand OKA from Alcoa, covered in rust and with about 25,000 kilometres on the odometer.

Today, that OKA sits in a lot in O’Connor where Mr Robinson, whose construction company folded in 2015, has sought to revive the legacy of this iconic all-terrain vehicle.

At its peak of production in the mid-1990s, OKA earned a dedicated following in Western Australia’s tourism, defence and mining industries, due to the original model’s weight and endurance across the state’s harsh interior.

Its unwieldy size, coupled with its niche appeal and cost of production, meant manufacturing could never scale to compete with the likes of Holden, Ford and Toyota.

Commercialising the vehicle proved a constant challenge and left businesspeople at home and abroad facing legal issues and debt.

Not that any of this perturbed Mr Robinson.

“Someone asked me why I would take on a business that had failed three times,” he said.

“If people want to pay for that capability, they will.

“Why not build it up to a standard and not down a cost?

“If it’s built to a standard, people will say: ‘That’s exactly what I want’.”

OKA works closely with individual customers on desired vehicle specifications. Photo: Gabriel Oliveira

Back story

Those familiar with OKA will likely remember it as a feted WA-based auto manufacturer, known as much for its hulking vehicles as its business troubles.

The brand, established by property developer and mining tycoon Mike Walker in 1985, supposedly came about after Mr Walker had spoken to mining executives who were in the market for a heavier four-wheel-drive truck than was widely available.

Expressions of interest helped the company produce about 250 vehicles between 1992 and 1995, selling for about $100,000 each.

And while OKA excelled in its niche, exporting as a defence contractor to the United Arab Emirates and tourism operators in the town of Cervantes, commercial buyers were less invested.

The mid-1990s production run was followed by a difficult period.

While the prototype had been partially funded with private dollars, in part courtesy of WAFL alumnus and Sandover Medal recipient Alan Quartermaine, the company had come to rely on millions of dollars provided by Malaysian businessman Vell Paari.

An IPO pursued in 1994 brought national interest and much-needed capital into the company in the short term, but did not fix fundamental issues with the business model, with $3.5 million needed in 1996 to help pay out creditors.

Technical issues with the vehicle’s drive train shut down production that same year, with improvised solutions doing little to solve the issue.

A confluence of financial difficulties and technical drawbacks left the company drained and, in 1997, OKA shut down production.

Stories of the brand’s recovery would surface over the years, most notably after former chief executive Arthur Gold proposed a restructure in 1999, with Mr Paari taking control and delisting the business that same year.

Prospects brightened in 2004 when Mr Gold told Business News that orders for new vehicles were coming in from around the world, and that OKA would triple its workforce in order to more than double production to meet demand.

Production would be short-lived, however, with the company placed into administration in 2011 following allegations arising from a KPMG audit.

Mr Gold later resigned, as did chief financial officer Tom Kosserkas, who denied any impropriety.

Mr Paari packed the remnants of the company into 11 shipping containers, where they would sit for a year until Mr Robinson became aware of the situation.

“I’d already been through [the containers] because we’d gone through them many times before,” Mr Robinson said.

“They said, ‘Why don’t you just make us an offer for the lot?’ I did, and they accepted it [and] so, here we are.”

It would be a further five years until Mr Robinson would buy the company in its entirety from Mr Paari, relaunching OKA as a boutique carmaker and restorer of legacy vehicles.

His team and warehouse, significantly smaller than in the company’s halcyon days, focus chiefly on two tasks: rebuilding and restoring older models as part of the new R-Series, and manufacturing new models as part of the NT Series.

While previous iterations of the business struggled with scale, costing and the task of manufacturing, Mr Robinson has made a point of setting modest targets.

As he sees it, the business’s formative struggles have informed his more conservative approach, which caters to existing customers and accepts the limited nature of the market for heavyweight, off-road vehicles.

“All that history is valuable for me moving forward, where OKA didn’t have that to begin with,” he said.

None of which is to say Mr Robinson is without ambition.

He points out that contracts in the emergency services sector for heavyweight vehicles can be worth millions of dollars, and that the local mining exploration industry, which has shifted its focus to WA’s interior in light of international travel restrictions, can also make use of these vehicles.

And while the commercial market is limited, the business has sold two vehicles in the past month to individual customers, with awareness growing among those willing to spend $200,000 for the power and stability an OKA can provide.

Mr Robinson said the value proposition for these customers was simple.

“It’s about going to somewhere no-one else can get to, with great comfort and all the gear you want to take with you,” he said.

“If your vision is to build the world’s greatest off-road truck in its class, then that’s all it needs to be.

“People will follow that vision.”