Where It Began: Gustav Kochendorffer, Master Engineer

Our engineering lineage begins in 1855, with the birth of Gustav Adolph Franz Kochendorffer in Magdeburg, Germany. Gustav trained formally as an engineer, completing a first-class certificate through technical colleges at Hoexter and Einbeck before spending five years honing his craft at a major engineering works in Buckau.

In 1879, Gustav sailed for Australia aboard the Northumberland, arriving in Victoria to build a new life. After an early venture running a timber-cutting operation in Horsham, he made his way to Melbourne, where by 1885 he had established his own engineering works on Little Lonsdale Street.

This was not a hobbyist’s workshop. It was a serious manufacturing engineering business, built on formal training, meticulous workmanship, and a reputation that travelled well beyond Melbourne.

Over the following decades, Gustav built a serious engineering reputation — manufacturing precision soda water and beer aerating machinery, and, most notably, ice and refrigeration machinery based on the ammonia compression cycle, at a time when this was genuinely cutting-edge technology.

Trade write-ups of the era described his ammonia compression machines as placing him “ahead of all the refrigerating machines at the present time,” and his growing works on St Francis Street, Melbourne, supplied customers not only across Victoria but interstate in Tasmania, and as far afield as South Africa.

A Name Forged by History

From Kochendorffer to Kent

Gustav’s son, Adolph Gustav Franz Kochendorffer, was born in 1888 and grew up immersed in the family engineering trade.

In 1916, Adolph made the decision to anglicise his name to Arthur Kent, and the family business was renamed The Kent Motor and Engineering Company — a change that also marked the business’s shift in focus toward the emerging motor vehicle industry, as Australia’s roads filled with cars for the first time.

It’s this moment that we still mark as our official founding date today.

R.Kent & Sons

A New Generation, A Sharper Focus

Arthur’s son, Richard Adolph Kent, carried the family’s engineering skill forward into the next generation. Richard struck out on his own, founding R.Kent & Sons and sharpening the family’s long engineering tradition into a specialised focus: automotive chassis, suspension, steering, and driveline repair and engineering.

The lap of the map

In 1938, John Balmer and Richard Kent set a new record for circumnavigating the Australian continent in the OE100.

With co-driver Richard Kent and backing from the likes of Dunlop, Repco and Shell, Balmer and the OE100 completed their ‘lap of the map’ in 24 days, 11 hours and 58 minutes.

This smashed the existing record by more than 20 days, but could have been even better. A generator failure made night driving impossible for long sections of the journey (two full days were lost in Darwin trying to remedy this) and heavy rains in Queensland slowed progress further.

Without these problems, Balmer and Richard estimated they could have completed the circuit of the country up to a week quicker!

In the mid-1950’s Richard relocated the businesses to a small outlying suburb of Melbourne called Clayton, land was cheap with nothing but market gardens and fresh country air. A perfect place for his 3 sons to learn the business and one day takeover from him.

Tom, William and James dutifully did this in 1966 and continued on with the family tradition of high-quality specialised repairs and changeover parts.

R Kent and Sons Workshop

Expanding across three adjoining premises, James continued to lead the industry, sharing the knowledge and technique been refined across four generations and well over a century of hands-on engineering practice with his sons.

Four generations of engineers, working continuously since the 1870s, have handed down more than a surname

They’ve handed down an engineering discipline — the training, the precision, and the problem-solving instinct to look at a damaged or worn component and understand not just how to patch it, but how to correctly re-engineer it back to original specification.

Today, Andrew Kent continues Gustav Kochendorffer’s original engineering ethos: understand the engineering first, then execute the repair to that standard, leading the development of manufacture-equivalent repair method processes for chassis and suspension components.

When you bring your vehicle to R.Kent & Sons, you’re not just getting a repair. You’re drawing on knowledge and technique that’s been refined across four generations and well over a century of hands-on engineering practice.