In 1972 a Papakura local had an idea... to bring the worlds best golf carts to New Zealand.
EZGO NZ History
The worlds best, brought to you by Kiwis.
EZGO NZ Founder Dick Talyancich and son, now owner, Pete Talyancich
In 1972, Dick Talyancich, EZGO NZ's Founder, was over in LA playing golf at his bachelor party. Being a tough rugby-playing Kiwi, he was too staunch to use a golf cart, so he decided to walk the course. The only issue was - it was 40 degrees. At the end of the long, hot day, he was pulled aside by his future father-in-law and asked why he would walk around a golf course in such heat when it was meant to be a fun-filled day celebrating his upcoming marriage. It was at that moment that Dick had an idea...
Fast forward to 1987 and Dick, a shoe shop owner in Papakura, couldn't stop thinking about how awesome golf carts would be in NZ, so he took the leap and sourced one container of used EZGOs from Hawaii.
Unfortunately, Dick overlooked the fact that the used EZGOs on the busiest, most corrosive course on the planet were going to be absolute dogs to work with, but away he went.
Dick's technical ability was close to, well, non existent... He almost blew himself up once not realising that US chargers were 110V and NZ was 240V...
Safe to say Dick was a great talker and a great salesman and without him we would not be here. Looking back on those days, we often wondered how we unloaded 40ft containers without forklifts, rebuilt old rusty EZGO carts with no new parts, fixed them with next to no ideas about how to do it. The shoe salesman from Papakura who had no technical knowladge, no idea about currency or international trade somehow pulled it all off.
After a few years at school and working in a few kitchens, washing dishes and clearing tables, Dick's son Pete decided to come down to EZGO to sweep the floors, and that's where the next part of the story begins. Pete was flatting and, honestly, needed money for rent and beer, so he started right at the bottom and worked his way up through every part of the business. He was lucky to have a great team which taught him well.
On a visit to the Augusta Factory in the early 2000s, we noticed the front disc brakes on the big commercial EZGO Titan. At the time, there was concern back at one of our largest customers, Air NZ, that the EZGO utilities working at the airport couldn't stop well enough with the baggage trailers.
So, we got the EZGO parts manual for the Titan and agreed that we could make it work on the EZGO TXT utility, which Air NZ was using but only had rear-wheel brakes.
The folks at the Augusta Factory thought we were crazy, but we still went ahead and made it work. One of our highlights was when representatives of the Augusta Factory came to NZ to see our designs—the same designs they thought were crazy.
EZGO's with an Air NZ 777
NZ designed and built disc brake that went on to be picked up globally by EZGO.
What's even more remarkable is that one of the EZGO models we import now ( Hauler Pro ) has front disc brakes designed, created, and tested in New Zealand—just another example of NZ's 'number 8 wire' approach, which got the world's attention.
We jumped in when Lithium Batteries were introduced to the market, knowing it was the only way forward. During another visit to Augusta, Pete took notice of the batteries they were trialing. After some discussion, they agreed to send 12 packs of the Lithium Batteries down to us to test out in the Air NZ carts. EZGO eventually partnered with Samsung, proving a fantastic decision as nothing comes close to Samsung's lithium battery product.
Almost 40 years later, we've imported well over 5,000 EZGOs into New Zealand and are proud to be the country's best and biggest golf cart company. We also have the most extensive coverage of golf courses in New Zealand. In non-golf categories, we supply some of New Zealand's most respected companies and organisations, including Fisher and Paykel, many city councils, Auckland and Wellington Zoo, Ryman Healthcare, Arvida, Bupa, and Metlife Care Retirement.