John Symes

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame in 2023.

John Peter Symes was born in Harcourt Victoria in 1954, to parents Rex and Kathleen Symes. From an early age John was destined to be involved in the trucking industry. Having been raised on his parents’ orchard and sheep farm he spent his childhood years around farm machinery and trucks.

It was no surprise that when John came of age, he took the step into the transport and trucking industry. In the early 1970s John and his brother Greg started their own transport business “Symes Brothers”.

Over the next ten years John and Greg spent their time running interstate freight between Melbourne – Sydney – Brisbane – Adelaide and Perth as contractors to Peter Gunn’s Cubico Transport.

By the early 1980s John decided to go back out on his own. This was the start of John Symes Transport Harcourt. By the late 1990s John’s eldest son Dean joined the family business.

For the next 20 odd years John continued running between Bendigo and Melbourne daily, with his son Dean running interstate freight to all parts of Australia.

John loved to reminisce about going to Queen Victoria Market alongside his father in their old Maple Leaf Chevy and about his time on the road with his older brothers, Daryl and Ken, in the family’s Diamond-T and Commer Knocker trucks. When John would talk about these childhood memories, which he did often, he would always tell them with a huge grin on his face.

John had such a passion for the transport and trucking industry, every day in his presence was a true privilege and a great honour. Sadly, John passed away on 12th of December 2020 but as he would have wanted his sons Dean and Shawn have kept the John Symes Transport legacy alive.