It was into this commercial excitement of Lismore that RH and his partner arrived in their Ford T (young men seeking their fortunes and hopefully setting up their futures). The scene for those early days is set by the words of RH himself in an interview published in the Northern Star on 10th August 1940.

"After days of scrambling over roads that would today break one's hear to even look at, we eventually arrived in Lismore. The taxi provided to be such a novelty that for weeks the old Ford was tearing around the block carrying passengers at a 'bob a time'. This gave me a fair start, while I was merry collecting bobs (10 cents) from those who wanted to ride in the new fangled gadabout, we raised more dust than had been seen in the whole of the town's

history, and scared every horse that came in sight. I fear we made ourselves a public nuisance, and I know that there were many who thought I ought to be goaled. I learned that there were about eight cars, five motor buggies and two self-propelled 'bone shakers' in the district."

From the time RH and Stan Harrison arrived in Lismore with their Ford Laundlette, it was all go in the taxi hire business. Lismore's population at the time was approximately 3000 with one garage servicing 5 motor buggies, 8 motor cars and 2 bone shakers (motorbikes). From RH's memoirs he indicated "he felt the time was right to also get into the motor repair business", and inturn began renting from estate agents MacGregor Dunn, the rear portion of a building overlooking the river at the northern end of Molesworth Street, next to the original Northern Star office.

The business commenced trading as RH Trevan Motor Engineers and it could be said that his first motor car sale came by accident.

The sale came about from a fire that burnt Colonel Board's (a local architect) motor buggy to the ground after RH had been doing some servicing on it. As much as Mr Board was upset with his loss, he requested RH get him one of those new fangled Ford T's. The car came through the NSW vehicle importers and distributors (Messrs Davies & Fehon) whom had recently opened a branch in Lismore to service the northern end of NSW.

Prior to Davies & Fehon's arrival in Lismore, RH had previous dealings with them when driving the Ford T cab in Sydney.