The Castlemaine community was saddened to learn of the passing of Graffiti Publications and Australian Street Rodding magazine co-founder and beloved Castlemaine Hot Rod Centre chairman Larry O’Toole on September 8.
Larry’s children Lara and Allister have kindly shared the following tribute on behalf of the O’Toole family.
Larry O’Toole grew up on a wheat and sheep farm in Ultima, near Swan Hill, where his love affair was nurtured for all things mechanical. Growing from always playing with toy cars to becoming very interested in the old cars on the farm.
He knew he wanted to be involved in hot rods after discovering a hot rod magazine in a holiday house while on holidays with his best mate’s family in the late 1960s. He would avidly read everything he could get his hands on relating to the hobby.
As a result he built his first hot rod, a Model A Ford bucket, on the farm at age 19.
It was the first car he owned. He transformed the car into a hot rod from something his father and neighbour had been using to spray crops.
Larry didn’t finish high school. Upon leaving school he worked as a newspaper photographer and pre-press operator for the Swan Hill Guardian.
He married Mary in 1971 and moved to Castlemaine in July 1973 to work for Eddie Ford on his Custom Rodder magazine in Newstead. At this time he soon became acquainted with several of the members of the local hot rod club, Castlemaine Rods.
Mary and Larry owned a photographic business in Castlemaine from 1974 to 1981.
In 1976 there was a four-way start to Graffiti Publications to publish Australian Street Rodding with fellow local men Brian Bannerman, Geoff Knape and Colin Hall. The magazine focuses on owning, building and modifying street vehicles with an emphasis on pre-1948 cars.
The four men all had, or were building street rods at the time and often debated the value of the hot rodding magazines that were available. Mostly those discussions were about how the magazines weren’t meeting our needs as hot rodders and how someone should do something about it.
Between them their skills were varied: Brian was a printer, Colin worked for the Commonwealth Bank, Geoff was an electrician and Larry was a photographer and had experience in print production.
Despite their high ambitions that first issue wasn’t very successful. They had overestimated how well it would sell and the finished magazine wasn’t as well produced as they had anticipated. This wasn’t going to be as easy as they had thought. After the first 12 months things hadn’t improved much and both Brian and Geoff decided they would be better off concentrating on their own businesses. They left the partnership and Colin and Larry continued on, determined to make this magazine into something worthwhile. By 1980 the magazine had reached the point where it supported them fulltime.
Larry and Mary became sole owners in 1989. Today, Graffiti Publications prints and franchises more than 300 specialist books – including more than 13 written by Larry – and DVDs relating to the modified car industry as well as Australian Street Rodding magazine, which is sold in newsagents across the country. The magazine is among only a handful of any Australian magazine titles to still be in publication for more than 45 years. The October 2022 edition is the 388th magazine published.
Mary has been the key administrative support in between raising their four children, and now a second generation has taken on the interest with his son, Allister, as editor of the magazine for the past nine years as Larry steps back.
Larry travelled extensively throughout Australia, the United States and other parts of the world in pursuit of hot rodding interests and providing coverage for his books and magazine. He is extremely well-known in hot rodding circles. The dedication to hot rodding saw him write the first comprehensive book on hot rodding in the country – History of Australian Street Rodding.
He was one of several local hot rodders that spent many years building up the hot rodding industry in the Castlemaine area to the point where it has become an important part of the local economy and as such a provider of a significant number of jobs in the region. The industry employs about 150 people in the small town and surrounds. It brings in an estimated $50 million to the local economy.
To reinforce Castlemaine has the greatest concentration of hot rod enthusiasts in the country, Larry and others were behind branding the city as the Hot Rod Capital of Australia, initially starting with the signs at each of the entrances to Castlemaine. The sign at the north end of town features two hot rods that Larry built and the family still own.
Larry was also the Chairman of not-for-profit Castlemaine Hot Rod Centre, an enterprise project developed in 2004 designed to promote education, leisure and entertainment to benefit the community. As a result of his role with the centre he was also a Mount Alexander Community Enterprise board member.
The Castlemaine Hot Rod Centre is designed to be a complete resource centre for hot rodding and all types of custom and specialty vehicles to reinforce Castlemaine’s reputation in the field and hot rodding and modified cars in general. The commitment to the centre has seen arrangements made with Mount Alexander Shire Council and the state government to transform the former Etty Street campus of Castlemaine Secondary College into what is now known as Autoplex.
The centre will become a unique tourism destination, comprise a museum and club facility, vehicle inspection station, and training facilities. An industrial precinct and retirement complex for active retirees and vehicle enthusiasts is also planned. A motivation is the opportunity to expand and attract new businesses and residents to the region creating more employment opportunities.
His other community work includes being a Coliban Water board member, Castlemaine State Festival committee member and junior basketball and football coach.
Larry’s selfless dedication to his community and local community groups will be sorely missed.