History celebrated as new generation opens for business

Robert and Emily Stephens in the former Bowden’s Garage Showroom – former home of the best Holden cars. Photo Ian Cole TWH

Story: Tricia Duffield

It’s not often that the opening of an old mechanic’s workshop would stir such feelings of nostalgia and enthusiasm in the community, but that’s what’s happened with the announcement that the old Bowden’s Garage on Richard Street, Bourke has new owners.

Emily and Robert Stephens recently purchased the building and opened for business on 5 January as Stephens Mechanical and Freight Services – a fresh, new chapter in the long history of the iconic Bowden’s building.

“There was a bit of cleaning up to do, removing old mechanical parts and replacing the wiring, lights and power points,” Robert said.

“But we’ve kept the building itself pretty much as it was. There’s a lot of history in that building and a lot of families in Bourke with connections to it,” he said.

The new business will continue the legacy of the Bowden family, and more recently the automotive business run by James and Melissa Simmons.

It may have been just a humble mechanics workshop, but to many people in Bourke it was a place of employment and training, where the skills of the Bowden boys in the early days and James ‘Simmo’ Simmons in more recent times, kept everyone’s cars on the road, where the NRMA was based and where people could proudly drive out of the workshop in a brand new Holden. […]

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