I am going to use this thread to write a little info,on all the interesting cars that I have owned over the last 62 odd years from my age of 14,and how I managed to come by them.
Also all the people that I met,and where some of the cars are now, and how they have ended up, starting with the first car I ever purchased and owned, before I came to NZ back in 1961.
Some of the photo's that I show, are not of my car's, but one's that were exactly the same make and model.
At this stage ,this is only a rough draft.
I arrived in NZ on the 5 of July 1961 after leaving Australia at the age of 20 having grown up in the horse and cart era bringing to NZ with me, a vast amount of knowledge of motor cars in general, as only a 20 year old would have gleaned from his experiences of the time.
My vast knowledge consisted of knowing
1 They ran on petrol
2 They had a battery to help you start them
3 Sometimes you had to crank them over by hand, if for some reason the battery had gone flat,
and if all else failed,you and your mates had to push the bloody thing to get it started, if you were clever enough you always made sure that you parked the thing on a downward slope,that way you did away, with the need to have too many hanger,s on mates to help you push start it if the battery was flat.
Also it was almost the done thing of a Saturday night, when you went to the local dance, and you were lucky enough to pick yourself up a temporary girlfriend for the rest of night. you always made sure that you had parked slanting, down hill
In not having to push the dam thing, or crank it,it gave you a bit more energy for other energy sapping activities later on in the evening or early in the morning,so you always made sure that you parked on a downward slope,if you went to a dance.
Sometimes you had to park some distance from the dance hall to enable you to park on the down hill ,but that was OK as it gave you a bit of time to get to know you new girl friend better, before you fell madly in love for the rest of the night,also you had to have a vast knowledge on changing tires and mending puncher's on the side of the road ,as it was normal to have at least one puncher a week.
You were considered to have a very reliable car back then, if your car went for more than a month without a puncher or flat battery,and it was not using at least a canvas water bag full of water a week,also you did not need an oil gauge because if it was not belching smoke out the exhaust, you knew you were out of oil. also you were considered to have a luxury make ,if it had twin side mounted spare tires ,as that gave you the opportunity of getting away with not having to mend a puncher on the side of the road ,if you were unlucky enough to have had two punchers in one day
Having said all of that ,the first car that I ever owned and brought at the age of 14 with some of the proceed's from my wages from the paper run that I had at the time, was a 1932 Ford B model tourer which I brought off a farmer in Eaglehawk ,Eaglehawk is just outside Bendigo.
Imagine this without running boards and no mud guards
No bonnet side cowling's
No roof
No head lights
And flat looking tires
I paid the price'ly sum of Two Pounds Five Shilling's and Six pence for it.
Not to bad a price then, but my uncle Frank always said that I paid to much for it, considering it had no mud guard's or running boards, the bonnet side panels had gone the canvas hood was long gone, and it had no back seat.
As the farmer had only used it to cart stuff around the farm in , all those parts were of no use, also the front right & left hand head light had also gone as well, there were no tubes in the tires as rubber was very hard to come by after the war, and you had to look very hard to find tubes, and the tires were only packed very tight,filled with straw, which was pretty handy as I did not have to worry about getting punches, at least once a week ,although after a time ,the straw would slowly disintegrate,and turn to chaff ,which was a bit of a nuisance, as it would mean having to repack the tires every now and then ,after a while we found it better to use green grass as it seemed to have lasted a little longer between re packing,you had to be a little careful, when you let out the clutch pedal,as it had a tendency to spin the tire on the rim .
Looking back to then, I think it must have been one of the very first cars to sport low profile tires ,and the weight of the car sitting on the tires packed with grass, made the rim roughly an inch or so off the ground,and the tires stuck out the sides of the rims both sides about 2 inches .
I think from memory that the wheels were about 18 inch wire spoke with solid rimes ,I know they were a pain to pack the grass in ,they would have been much better if they had have been split rim.
Back in 1917 this was the solution for the shortage of rubber in Germany
I guess the grass was the Australian solution, back then
Back in about 1947 petrol was also very hard to come by in Australia and my Dad had a very early model Burgundy colored Marmon sedan,I am not sure of the year, but it would have been a mid to late 30's model at the time, I cannot remember if it was, or whether it was a V16 as the one in this photo but if it was, it would have appealed to my Dad, as flying Spitfires and Kitty Hawks he would have been used to having at least 12 cylinders in front of him.My Father died at the early age of 39 as results of the war .
I didn't know much about it, only that it appeared to be nearly as big as an ARA bus and used fuel accordingly,my dad having just come back from the war and being a fighter pilot, would mix up, along with my uncles this fuel mix, which consisted of 50% petrol 50% kerosene and they put some other additive into the mix that was suppose to help your car to run on this 50% petrol and 50% kero.
The above photo is what my Father's Marmon was like, except his was a hard top sedan, to me as a kid it was huge ,I remember sitting in the back seat with my brother along with one of my uncles and my brother and myself's push bikes,in the back, across the back of the front seat ..
My First real driver at the age of 18 after I had learnt to drive around the farm, and around the dirt roads of Marong and Eaglehawk in the old B Model,was a very tidy green 1937 2 door Vauxhall coupe with a dicky seat or rumble seats, as some call them ,I am not sure why they call them dickey or rumble ,as sure as hell you couldn,t do much with a dickey let along have a rumble in it as I remember as an 18 year old, back then.
I am not sure how much it cost back then ,as my uncle Frank gave me some of the money for the purchase,at that time he had very nice 1956 Ford Fairlane, which was from memory about 5 colors, which he hardly ever drove,and he used to keep it in the shed all polished up and covered up,and went every where on his bike or horse ,if it rained he stayed home,sometimes he would borrow my car ,looking back now I can see why he gave me some money to buy my car, cunning bugger.
After several months of being thrashed to death, as all young blokes of the time treated there cars,the ones I knew anyway, if they were lucky enough to own one, the poor old Vauxhall gave up the ghost and I blew the gear box,,I found out later after the event that they were renown for having weak gear boxes ,and I can without question agree with that,especially 1st and 2nd gear,so for a short time I was car less and it was put to rest up in a paddock and stayed there for as long as I can remember and become home for snakes lizards and red back spiders.
I know it was still there long after I come to NZ
.
This is what my Vauxhall was like ,but was dark green with black guards
This photo is what it looked like from behind
After that,and for sometime after, I relied on my mate Kevin to get around with, or anyone else who needed a few bob for gas .
Kevin had a nice little Singer sports that we used to get around in, unfortunatly for me ,if we managed to pickup some girl friends I always had to sit in the back,I must say that it was not very comfortable in the back seat, as you sat quite high up above the line of the front screen,a bit like the way I am sitting on the back of my brother's and mine little pedal car that we had about 1945.
I always had to jump off and push if we went up a small hill ,thank god I never had to jump off and push Kevin's Singer but I did have to contend to the wind blowing in your face, but it did make for a cosy night out if you had a girl friend as you had to snuggle down together to get out of the wind blowing in your face and blowing her hair all over the place,I would have prefured a dickey seat much better
The next car I was fortunate enough to part own ,again with a little help from uncle Frank, in late 1959, was a near new very nice two tone grey, 1957 FC holden,the same as the one in this photo, but without the rear spat's
I must say I was not overly wrapped with it the way I was with the Vauxhall, and felt it was not as sporty as the Vauxhall ,but it was great if I went any long distance, as I could take a couple of extra mates with me to help pay for the gas.It was not unusual for us to drive 100 miles to Melbourne from Bendigo of a saturday night, to go to the pictures.
Unfortunately, on the early evening of Saturday the 13-11-1960 prior to us heading off to Melbourne to the pictures several of my group of friends, were involved in a tragic car accident,resulting in three of them being killed ,one being my girl friend at he time.This left quite a void in my life,at the time.
At this time in my life at the age of 20 I had just finished a 5 year apprenticeship qualifying as a textile engineer having turned 20 in September of 1960, prior to my coming out of my time, I was approached by a large company in NZ,with the offer of a position in that company,
In 1961 before I came to NZ Uncle Frank payed me out what I had put into the car pound wise,which was about 700 Pounds.
Uncle Frank traded it in on a 1956 FJ Holden Ute
,
and stopped riding his horse to work, or going on his bike ,he was a builder at the time and he used to look quite strange going off on his horse with his saws in the front of him like a cowboy would have his rifle in the front of the saddle.
The first car that I owned 3 months after coming to NZ was a 1929 Erskine ,the same as the one in this photo except the paint color had faded somewhat, and was more a rusty brown in color, pretty much the same color as the B Model Ford, in the photo above, but without the white wall's and flag , as the one below, other than that it was the same.
I had purchased it from a car dealer in Greenlane, called Lew Schultz,he was on the corner of Market road and Greenlane road at the time, I think there is a dry cleaner there now,I paid about 300 Pound for it, which was a lot of money then, considering that my Holden that I had in Australia was worth about 1200 Pounds at the time.
It looked very much like my Dads Marmon,but a bit smaller,I remember having 11 guys all packed in like sardines one Saturday night on our way to a party over Herne Bay way.
I will never forget going up Bond street which used to be a very step gully down one side and up the other in Kingsland before the Motor Way was put through, with eleven of us in it,and getting 3/4 up the very steep hill, and all the guys having to jump out and push, as the clutch started slipping and she just didn't have enough momentum to get to the top,and some one in a MKV Jaguar screaming up the hill overtaking us,he most have hit the bottom of the dip in the gully at, at least a 100 mph to fly past us at the speed he was going when he passed use 3/4 up the hill.
Over the following months we had a lot of fun in the old girl and went every where imaginable in her,without to many problems, except it had a small hole in the radiator at the bottom and I had to keep a close eye on the water level and had a few punchers, but other than that, it was a great old car
!936 Ford Sedan
After the old Erskine finally gave up the ghost ,three of us all chipped in and purchased a very tidy 1936 Ford sedan off a young guy,Wally Reid, who at the time was an apprentice locksmith,that worked for Chubb's at the time
!937 Ford V8 Coupe
I purchased a very nice looking Black 1937 Ford V8 coupe from a dealer called Able Motors in Onehunga. They used to be in Onehunga Mall opposite the Hotel
The model was know as a Salesman Coupe,as you could pull the front of the back seat forward and access the boot,and travelling Sales men used to have a mattress in there,and would sleep in there when they were out of town.
The first Alpine that I owned was a very straight Series 3 GT with hard and soft top
I had purchased it to replace the Buckler above that I sold to Bruce Sutcliffe for the pricely amount of a swap for a 12ft long x12ft wide,white shag pile carpet,not a bad deal for me at the time considering I only paid $50.00 for the Buckler and the carpet was worth about $150.00 back then and my wife of the time was wrapped to have the carpet in the main bedroom ,I was not very happy though, as I had nothing in the garage,to play with
Series 4 GT Alpine being converted with Ford Capri Essex V6 Motor and 5 speed Alfa box
Some of the founding members of the Sunbeam Alpine Tiger club inspecting my work
To fit the V6 and Alfa box,required the fire wall to be modified,as can just be seen in the top photo
Stev Carr the Valiant into a Austin Healey man, did all the welding for for this mod for me
Series 4 GT Sunbeam Alpine
Quite a considerable amount of modification was undertaken in fitting the V6 to the Alpine
to enable it to retain the original steering
Also the V6 was highly modified, and fitting the Alfa box to the engine, was no easy task
I had the block bored 195 thou and used flat top forged 283 chevy pistons (John Sampson ) when he was at Motor Traders
The block was machined and the 2 centre mains were 5 bolt (Robbin Unkovick)
Combustion cambers in heads(Haliday's)
Rocker studs pinned
Crank was cross drilled
Harcourt racing intake manifold
350 holly carb
Headers ( Don Haliday)
Mating the gear box to the engine was a bit of a challenge,but in the end worked out great
Back then 5 speed gear boxes had just start coming out in numbers in around 1974, and I think from memory the Toyota was about the only one that was available, but was pretty expensive at the time and hard to find
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