Through the years
Flexible Drive is building an organisation of the future on the foundations of the past.
We have always been in the business of control systems. The company was established in 1939 repairing automotive instruments and cables. Cables for brake, speedometer, throttle, clutch, bonnet, and boot release, which soon became the core of the business.
By the mid nineteen eighties, a management buyout created the structure of the modern Flexible Drive, with ownership held by Alan Rushton. Alan was passionate about the automotive industry, entrepreneurship, and innovation and the potential for the aftermarket. He worked tirelessly up to his untimely death in the early 1990’s to develop the Company's strategic direction and vision and was greatly admired throughout the industry and by his own staff.
In 2014, Alan’s daughter Andrea Rushton, assumed responsibility of Flexible Drive as Executive Director and majority owner. Together with industry stalwart Kevin Holmes, Managing Director, and shareholder, their partnership has renewed the values of a family business establishing a progressive direction for Flexible Drive’s future.
After commencing with the business the new management looked closely at the core business and chose to focus on the strength of the organisation with its long-standing supplier and customer base in the original equipment manufacturing and automotive aftermarket. Flexible Drive is now rationalised and focused on clearly defined markets and control systems products.
As Australia’s leading manufacturer, designer, and repairer of cables for a wide range of uses, we continue to produce our core products ranging from micro medical cables to large scale rotational shafts used in Australian Naval vessels. However, we are much more than that. Our business continues to grow and evolve as do the industries in which we operate with new technologies allowing us to problem solve and develop bespoke solutions for our clients, in each of our product categories.
Flexible Drive operates a national network of offices across Australia servicing sophisticated customers. Our mission remains connected to Alan’s original vision: we aim to lead the introduction of new techniques and be the catalyst for change in a traditional industry, providing a seamless user experience in the creation, search, and delivery of control systems solutions in support of our OEM, Regulated Fleets and Aftermarket Transportation customers.
Andrea and Kevin continue to drive improvement and sustainable growth throughout the organisation supporting not only its customers but future generations. It’s a remarkable story. Almost four decades since Alan Rushton's vision guided the business, Flexible Drive's iconic brand is still widely respected and immediately recognisable through its distinctive orange branding.
Who we are today
Today the world is a much more demanding place than when we first set up business. Flexible Drive has transitioned to meet these increasingly complex technologies. Mechanical systems led to hydraulics, which in turn led to electronics.
And we now offer our customers advanced 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), a process that can produce components direct from 3-dimensional CAD data.
One thing that hasn’t changed though.
We are, and remain, a fiercely independent Australian manufacturing and distribution business dedicated to providing the solutions OEMs, Regulated Fleets and Aftermarket Distributors need. Originally located in Flemington, before relocating to Kensington where the business operated for over 25 years, in 2020, we moved our head office to a modern facility in Keilor Park, Victoria.
We are committed to supporting progressive thinkers, the people who build great equipment, who maintain it well and those who supply them.
They all need solutions and our focus is on delivering our customers ever better options, great availability, great value and long-term support. That’s just who we are.