Tunehouse Founder

Jim Ghelis: The Story So Far…

Jim’s passion for the automotive industry and all things motorsport started with his Apprenticeship in 1985 in Sydney, Australia. Having already been involved in Racing prior to this with both the Alfa Romeo and Fiat marquees in Europe, his enthusiasm and natural appetite as a diagnostician was well under way. By the time he was a second year apprentice Jim had already gained 6 solid months of dyno tuning and diagnostic experience under his belt and was excelling in his trade being recognized as NSW Mechanical Apprentice of the year as a second year student.

Working for a Nationally Franchised Automotive Repairer, Jim was managing stores by his 4th year as an apprentice and recruited into the head office as a diagnostic specialist and trainer shortly after. Jim soon found himself back enjoying dyno tuning full time while a progressing career seen him responsible for bringing franchised stores online and up to speed as a manager. His appetite for Motorsport in the meantime was being fed by ongoing association with V8 Supercar racing, GTP and Production car racing at a setup, support and tuning level.

Jim sought out new challenges and saw opportunities with high end performance cars spending many years developing Porsche’s, Lamborghini’s, Ferrari’s and Lotus’ for Production and other tarmac racing styles. Fine Tuning (forgive the pun) his skills with a sizeable Sydney Performance workshop responsible for many iconic cars at the time, Jim realized there was an opportunity to bring together all the things he loved about the automotive service industry, Japanese & European Exotics and the Australian Performance scene – Proudly recalling the exact date, Jim says ‘I opened the doors to Tunehouse on the 21st August, 2001…’.