How Australian Vinegar made it big on the world stage – twice over – by thinking outside the box.
11 February 2026
Meet the spare parts business that’s doing a lot of heavy lifting
Expressway Spares is a little-known but crucial cog in keeping Australia’s mining machinery running.
Once described as a nation that rode on the sheep’s back, it could be argued Australia’s modern-day prosperity rests on the shoulders of the hulking machinery that mines our country’s mineral resources.
Expressway Spares is a vital cog in that decades-long resources boom. While not a household name, the family-owned enterprise based at Wauchope, in northern New South Wales, has nonetheless been supplying crucial aftermarket components and reconditioned parts to Australia’s mining, construction and logging industries since 1964.
That’s when Gerard Cassegrain, a French migrant and self-taught mechanic who was working at a local sawmill, procured an old bulldozer and stripped it for parts.
“As soon as he’d done that, someone said, ‘I'll take the blade’. Someone else wanted the tracks,” says his grandson James Dunn, the current-day Managing Director of Expressway Spares. “He thought, ‘There’s something in this wrecking for parts business’.”
Digging in for the long haul
Beginning as a wrecking yard for logging trucks and bulldozers on the side of the Pacific Highway, Expressway has evolved into a sophisticated aftermarket parts empire with five offices in three states, including 200 staff at its Wauchope head office. Its customer list includes some of Australia’s largest miners.
“Outside of the OEM [Original Equipment Manufacturer], we’re the biggest private and independent dealer in parts and components suitable for Caterpillar internationally,” Dunn says with pride.
Expressway’s business model is to acquire heavy machinery from around the world to strip for parts that it can recondition and on-sell. It also imports aftermarket parts and components for its local customers, along with used engines which it repairs or reconditions, before selling locally and also exporting them to overseas customers.
It’s good for business but also for the environment. “It’s been said the average saving of embedded carbon in a rebuilt engine, as opposed to a new engine, is 75 to 80 per cent,” Dunn says.
There all the way
A central pillar of Expressway’s success has been a 30-year relationship with NAB, which has not only backed the company’s determined drive for growth in recent years, but also brokered a complex deal to buy out a group of family members who exited the business in 2021.
“That was a significant transaction and NAB were with us 100 per cent of the way,” Dunn recalls. “We were looking at having another equity partner come in, but in some ways we feel like NAB’s our equity partner.
“Each of our branch expansions has either involved a purchase or a lease. They’ve been with us every step of the way.”
Putting faith in strong values
Corey Beeton, NAB’s Business Banking Executive for the NSW Mid North Coast region, says the company’s leadership values shine through in every transaction.
“They do what they say they’ll do, which gives you a fair bit of faith when you’re trying to make a decision to back them,” he says.
“It essentially comes down to the business leadership – they’re competent; they keep evolving; they have their fingers on the pulse all the time.”
Meet the Kingaroy nut processor whose products are on supermarket shelves from Singapore to Spain
ARTICLE
Searching out new markets for its premium oils, pastes and powders has helped Plenty Foods build a sizeable export revenue stream.