Long before Super Tyres became a household name across KwaZulu-Natal, it was two people – Jocelyn and Bob – and a stack of debt. The story of how it became one of the province’s most trusted tyre businesses is, at its heart, the story of a young law student named Jos — Jocelyn Horn.
It began in 1968, when Bob Horn was working as a butcher on R48 a week and living well beyond his means. He met Jocelyn, then studying law at university, and set out to impress her — only for her to take one look at his finances and put a stop to it. Bob was the one earning the money, but it was Jocelyn who knew what to do with it: she put her own legal training to work, taking charge of the roughly R20,000 he’d racked up in debt and methodically arranging its repayment. It’s a small, telling detail: from the very beginning of the Horns’ story, it was Jocelyn’s discipline and financial instinct steering the ship.
That instinct never left. The idea for the business was born almost by accident — Bob sold a set of old tyres for R2 and realised there was money to be made collecting and reselling scrap tyre casings. But an idea is not a business, and it was Jocelyn who helped turn a side hustle into an enterprise. In 1971, with Bob’s brother Bill, the three of them poured everything they had into a modest shop on Leopold Street in Durban. Jocelyn was pregnant at the time — and her commitment to the new business didn’t pause for it. She would at times even do wheel balancing herself, pregnant, alongside the rest of the work that needed doing to get the shop on its feet.
When the location proved too quiet, Bob signed a lease on a West Street storefront with only R435 in the bank — a leap of faith that could easily have sunk the business, had the finances behind it not been managed with such care. By late 1973, as the business found its footing, Jocelyn formally took up the role of Financial Director — bringing her sister-in-law Marge Lahana on board to help her manage the books as the company grew. It was a role she would hold for decades, through branch after branch opening across Natal, as a scrappy family venture grew into a multi-million Rand enterprise.
Those who knew her well remember one line above all — a philosophy that guided every account she ever balanced: “If you take care of the cents, the rands look after themselves.” It’s a simple idea, but it’s the thread that runs through the entire Super Tyres story: careful, disciplined stewardship, applied consistently, for decades.
Jocelyn passed away in August 2006, but the business she helped build — and the financial discipline she brought to it from day one — carried on. Her son, Dean Horn, joined the company in 1997 and took over as CEO in 2011, continuing the family legacy she and Bob started. Today, more than 55 years on, Super Tyres is still guided by the values she helped instil: honesty, integrity and trust.
In an industry that, even now, is still working to make space for women in senior roles, Jocelyn Horn was doing the job of Financial Director for a growing multi-branch business back in 1973 — decades ahead of when it was common, let alone expected. She wasn’t just Bob’s partner in the venture. She was, by every measure, a co-founder — and a pioneer in her own right.