By Margaret Maccoll
When Clayton’s Towing hits the TV screen next month, it’ll be more than just “mechanics and carnage”, there will be plenty of personalities to shine a light on the industry not always held in high esteem.
Mike Clayton works alongside his daughter Samantha and dad, Bill, who set up the family-run business 47 years ago, growing over that time from one old hand-made tow truck to a staff of more than 100 and 14 depots from Caboolture to Mackay including Noosaville.
Mike said their vehicles’ dash cam footage which they upload to Facebook has more than 40,000 followers, and caught the attention of Channel 7.
“We’ve always had the dash cam there for our own protection, so we can see what’s happening around us, and it helps us in training,” he said.
“They’d seen some of the stories we do and thought they could do a show on us.”
After an initial trial run, the Channel 7 team went along for the ride, filming the day-to- day occurrences.
“They’ve been with us for almost a year,” Mike said. “They’ve become part of our crew and in our uniforms.”
Mike said some of his team definitely had “the personality for TV” and the show would give an insight into the human side of the business as well as the machinery involved.
Mike said there was no towing company across Australia with the equipment and capacity of Clayton’s- something they had built up over the years.
From caravans and semi-trailers to cranes and boats, Clayton’s has the equipment and know-how to recover or remove.
Last week, Mike dismantled and removed a boat that had run aground at Mooloolaba, a job, he said, was made difficult by both the location and the population.
