The Story of Bock Australia Pty Ltd

History of Ajax Refrigeration leading to the formation of Bock Australia Pty Ltd.

Ajax Refrigeration Pty. Ltd. Commenced trading in 1948 supplying commercial and domestic refrigerators being the New South Wales distributor for Frigidaire, this was a very successful agency with many government contracts.

Ajax in 1958 negotiated with Mr. Terry the rights to sell Terry compressors and units throughout N.S.W. (Terry compressors were manufactured in Australia). This was the forerunner of  Ajax manufacturing and marketing their own range of condensing units using the Terry compressor. Ajax was also involved in contracting installing their own units.

Towards the end of 1962 Terry split the distributorship of their range of products although working well when approached by another manufacturer we elected to change.

Ajax in 1964 became agent and the national distributor for Bitzer releasing a full range of compressors and condensing units throughout Australia. At this time the supermarket industry was developing very quickly opening many stores Bitzer compressors were very popular. This agency lasted for 5 years for reasons best left the agency was transferred to one of our employees with the support of Bitzer Germany.

Prior to this Mr. Bruce Downie, Director of BOCK Australia Pty. Ltd, was studying in England in1965 attending the Hanover Fair and visited the Bock exhibit, noticing the modern design of the compressor range “crankshaft oil pump” of  the “F” and “AM” series an improvement to the excentric and strap design. Being able to run up to motor speed giving much greater flexibility in selection capacity per compressor. Little did he realise the chain of events would lead to in 1969 Ajax /Bock combination.

March 1970 the Bock was officially released into the Australian market as with sales of Bock compressors and Ajax Bock condensing units with “AM, F and K models”. Although slow to start the hurdles of 1400 rpm as against 900 and the unique design of the AM compressors soon became accepted giving Bock the reputation of excellence it still holds to day.

Bock Australia Pty Ltd.  joint venture BOCK GMBH and DOWNIE GROUP INDUSTRIES Pty. Ltd. Formed in November 2001 until to day.