Sometimes, a moment comes along in life that will define the direction that life will take. Andrew Jeffcott had just such a moment – the moment he took a newly released Toyota 86 for a drive around the block. To say nothing was the same after that might be a touch melodramatic but the fact is that drive changed his direction in life and career. Now entering its fourth year of operation, his The 86 Shop in Wacol, Brisbane, proves many things, including his skills as an engineer and driver, that his faith in the Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ platform was well placed, and that he was far from alone in his enthusiasm for these vehicles.

Words and pictures: Lara Wilde

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How did The 86 Shop come to be?

AJ: I’ve been into cars all my life and wanted to be a mechanic but wasn’t allowed by my mum – she had bigger plans. In my 20s, I was still on the family farm in Tumbarumba in rural NSW, but was also still tinkering with cars, including as crew chief for a mate’s speedway team. We were the most successful team to never win a title – he’d be in the lead regularly, have a brain fade and lose it!
Then I developed serious issues with my back from working on the farm and at age 30 had to have major surgery. I couldn’t work or do anything really for two years and spent six months in bed.

Around then, a friend of a friend let me know about a full-time course at the Albury-Wodonga TAFE called Engineering in Motorsport. I left the farm under a cloud and with the back injury I couldn’t work. I wasn’t eligible for any assistance, so decided to go do the course.

During that time, I worked, as many of the kids did, with Brad Jones Racing, and through them I got a start with Gibson Motorsport – which was 00 Motorsport at the time. I then went to another team and in about 2005 I came to Queensland to work with WPS Racing.
After two years there I went to John French Motors working on Subarus. About five years later, a good customer – an ambo driver – came to me saying he wanted to do time-attack race events. I’d spent five years learning about Subarus, but before that I knew little about road cars, nothing about Subarus, and never touched a turbo in my life. I wasn’t actually a mechanic in that I didn’t have formal qualifications. However, we were extremely successful. We dominated time attack in street all-wheel-drive, and there was one year there, I think 2015, when all the top five cars were my cars.

So, aged 42, I did my RPL (Recognition of Prior Learning) and passed my whole trade in one day. At that time, we had four pretty good, dedicated, owner-drivers in WRX STIs, had ourselves a little pseudo team, and then the first 86/BRZ rolled in the door.
It was well prepared, and I took it for a drive. When I came back everyone asked, ‘What do you reckon?’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s that. I’m going to have to buy one. Holy crap are these things good!’. I knew right then that out of the box these would kick the crap out of our STIs. They were just so much better. The handling, the balance, everything. I knew then that there was my future.
At the time, 2012, I was running John French Motors in Woolloongabba for the owner. I told him I’d registered the name The 86 Shop and that I was going to quit, but I’d stay on, rent a hoist in the corner from him, do the book-ins and stuff like that in the mornings and he could hire someone new and I’d train them. That was in 2016.

We moved out here to the Wacol premises in 2018 and I now have a staff of four, including myself.

What has been the hardest thing about starting the business?

AJ: Staff and lack of capital. Going back a bit, I moved to Queensland with a suitcase. With what had happened with the farm, I basically started again at 32 and I had nothing behind me to start a business.

It has not been easy, but we’re here.

And finding the right people for any team isn’t easy. It’s the same for anyone though -the right people are crucial.

What’s The 86 Shop philosophy?

AJ: To do quality work, be honest and excel in all areas. We stay focused on our specialty and provide top quality work. Because I’ve done so much of this work, while the bloke down the road is going to need six hours to do the job and will charge you for that, I only need one hour and that’s what I’ll charge you for. And I’ll do it better. We are, as far as I’m aware, the only 86/BRZ specialist in Australia.

And I’ve had cars come into the shop from all over. I had a car from Darwin come in to be supercharged and I have regular customers from, for example, the NSW Mid-North Coast, who come here to have services and other work done.

Repeat custom is strong for you?

AJ: Yeah. If you’re going to be so specialised, you must. It is niche. We specialise in Subarus, but The BRZ Shop doesn’t have the same ring as The 86 Shop does it!?

I always thought our work was about 30 per cent race preparation and 70 per cent road car work. But when Covid hit, our race work dropped massively as the tracks were all shut and our business was down 51 per cent, and I realised the race work was much bigger to us. A lot of our clients have road-registered cars but they’re not driving them like that. They’re their toys, and they drive them to the track. That is one of the attractions of these cars. But with the tracks closed, they weren’t doing that and weren’t needing work to be done.

How is business now, as the Covid situation has improved?

AJ: We’re about the busiest we’ve ever been. I think because people have been stuck at home not spending money, they now had the money to do work on their cars. Last November, we did three times our best previous monthly turnover. People came out of winter with a bit of confidence and with money saved. Our work was mainly big-ticket stuff – brakes, exhausts, that kind of thing – not services. Also, we’ve just started year four in business, so people are getting to know we’re here. And we do offer services on all models too. If you have a 2012 Forester, we’ll service it.

You’re also hands on as a driver with a successful record – are you racing at the moment, and is your involvement important to the business?

AJ: The car’s temporarily out of action but I’ll be back racing soon. And it is incredibly important. It gives credibility to the business.
If you tell someone ‘this’ll work’, they look at what you’ve achieved and think, ‘Yeah, he should know’.

Even if I’m not racing, I go to talk and see how everyone’s doing and I met my head driver, Andrew Wilton, at a track event put on by the Qld 86/BRZ Club.

It’s a strong club and we’d have maybe 36 cars at a meeting, of which about 30 would be my customers. Anyway, we met, and I was watching him and thinking, ‘he can steer’. Then, some long-time customers and friends said they wanted to do the Bathurst six-hour, and we ended up buying an 86 and prepared it for that race.

It was a two-year process to get to the six-hour – we were going to do it 2018 but we just weren’t there yet with the car, the drivers, or the team – and because of the fuel capacity and mandatory stops, we needed three drivers, so we asked Andrew. We went to the race, completed it, and that cemented our friendship. And we came second in class and 16th out of 45. I was very happy with that. In 2019, we took out the Queensland Production Car Championship with Andrew at the wheel. The was a terrific result.

A unique part of your business is the custom work isn’t it?

AJ: Yes, and on the custom side, we make it. If you can’t buy it, we make it, or we sometimes look at what you can buy and think, ‘No, don’t like that, we can do that better’, and we do.

I learnt a lot of those skills from the Engineering in Motorsport course but also from way back in my days in speedway. Crash a speedway car and you just must fix it, however you can. That’s true of motorsport generally.

We don’t build ‘catalogue cars’ – you don’t point at something in a catalogue and say ‘I want that’ with us – we’re creative. We build them. We build cars. And I just love doing something that ‘can’t be done’ and beating everyone else!

How long have you been an MTA Queensland member and how has that benefited your business?

AJ: Well, The 86 Shop has been since we began. I did my RPL through MTA Queensland because I wanted the most credible and respected qualification process. It was the most stringent way to do it. It is also good to have MTA Queensland on your side for advice and advocacy. I haven’t had to use that service yet, but it’s good to know that’s there if I need it.

What does the future hold for you and The 86 Shop?

AJ: I’m always thinking of things I want to do. It’s another reason I like these cars. They’re a blank canvas. A WRX is a factory turbo and you buy things to complement that. These don’t have that. It’s all custom, all fresh. There are no factory components to make these cars forced induction. That’s what I really like about them. You can be creative and show that you’re better at it than anyone else. And there’s a fresh model coming at the end of the year too.

I’d like to get more into parts manufacturing, and I’d like to push that into the US. When we go to the track here, every car has got at least one of my parts on it. If I can get into the US, that’ll be huge. That’s the 18-month plan. Until now, I’ve just been busy making this a success.

I’d also like to win the six-hour in our class in one of these cars. We want to pull the pants down of the Australian motorsport community by suddenly putting one of these cars at the front of some of the big fields here! That’s this year’s motorsport plan, to get my car as quick as a Super 2/ Super 3 car – Porsche Carrera territory. I really think we can get there.

Source: Motor Trader e-Magazine (March 2021)

10 March 2021