Once home, he rolled his 1925 Paige truck down his driveway in the centre of Murchison and started tinkering with the engine.
“I was locked down for a fortnight like everyone else,” Mr Pitts said.
“It is good to be back in Murchison.”
In the tray of his 96-year-old truck is a handmade toolbox and a stick which has a very important job.
“The only way to find out how much petrol is in it is to get down on the ground, put the stick in the tank and have a look,” Mr Pitts said.
“Bloody ridiculous. It is thirsty! I nearly fell over from the amount of fuel it uses but in the 90s someone said ‘listen son, back in 1925 they were still on horses, they weren't worrying about the price of fuel'.”
Mr Pitts said there were only a handful of Paige vehicles left in the world.
“A bloke in America has done an article on my truck and he said it is definitely the only 1925 model left,” he said.
The truck was originally purchased by Mr Pitts's brother in the 1970s and used as an eye-catching advertisement outside the family's Bundoora ironworks factory.
“The factory is all but shut down now. I just walked out in 2004, I shut the doors. It's got welders, rollers, plate shearers all still in there but I'd had a gutful,” Mr Pitts said.
“Sometimes I go back, just to hang out. I have another vintage car stored there.”
Also shedded at Mr Pitts's Murchison residence is a motorbike he picked up off the side of the road in the 1990s, and a 1928 Singer.
13°C