MOTORING TALES
DIPSTICK RICHARD PALMER
My two brothers and I lived with Mum in a stone house that Dad built in 1950/51. It was on 8 acres at the top of Marnie Road, off Lionel - the house is still there. Behind us were perhaps a thousand acres of bush extending to Bilgoman Road in the east and Great Eastern Highway to the north. It was riddled with forestry tracks which were perfect for thrashing old cars around.
Our elder brother led the way with a late 30s Morris 8. He removed the body so that there was only a rolling chassis. The driver’s seat was secured to the chassis with fencing wire; the power to weight ratio was therefore excellent and he thrashed it around for a few years until Phil and I took over at ages 14 and 15…..
Our first was a late thirties Austin 10.
Mum ruled that we keep to our own property, but as there was only a circular gravel driveway, she soon got sick of us doing time trials around it, filling the house with dust and noise. She came home one day to find the Austin on its roof blocking the drive and so we graduated to the aforementioned bush.
However, we had trouble getting up the first part of the steep gravel track as the old girl was quite heavy and the side valve engine was stuffed so the replacement was………………...
A 1948 Ford Anglia soft top minus front wings
A friend was an apprentice at the Midland Workshops and said he would shave the head - I think he took off about 1/32” instead of thousands of inches- the compression went from 6:1 to about 9:1 and we could hardly crank it. Anyway, it went like the clappers. With no front wings we could watch the front wheels and became pretty quick in it. The fuel tank was a gallon tin perched on the scuttle with a plastic tube to the carburettor. The cable brakes were ineffective, but we didn’t know any better. We had a lot of fun throwing it around.
1948 Ford Anglia. Note the petrol tank is a gallon can perched next to the battery with fuel gravity fed to the carburetor!
A forties Ford flat top ute with V8 side valve motor followed but it spent most of its time sideways on the gravel and in the bush and even we were a bit scared by it.
A Triumph 2000
I got my license exactly 7 days after my 17th birthday which was as fast as you could then. I had saved and bought a lovely Triumph 2000 on HP which I promptly demolished against a power pole on Guildford Rd.
1950s Morris Oxford
Now very poor so next was a 1950s Morris Oxford with pull down-side curtains for the windows which were a lot of fun. I worked in the city and after negotiating Greenmount and shutting down she used to scream in protest for 10 minutes. (Blocked radiator?). Somehow lost reverse gear but still drove into the city every day for six months. With a bit of forethought and some shouldering I managed to park it at the Victoria Ave car park and get out every afternoon.
A Datsun 1000
A Datsun 1000 that a mate and I drove to Adelaide/Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane and back in 1972 when there was still about 400km of gravel on the Nullarbor. On the return trip she blew a radiator hose in said gravel section in the middle of summer. Cars few and far between and of course we carried no water. I had some insulation tape and taped the hose up. We had collected various beers (king browns) on the trip- the worst being Southwark from S.A - so in went 2 bottles of that. Got us back to Perth and I drove it around for ages with beer still in the system- the smell when the radiator cap was removed was foul! That car finished its life being head-oned by a mate’s Ford Fairlaine at the corner near the primary school- me going down and him coming up at an incredible speed. That corner also saw Billy Bussau roll his hot VW a number of times coming to rest on his mum’s verge! Unfortunately for Bill she was home at the time.
Then a succession of really terrible cars-…………………..
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A Ford Falcon for $80.00 which some mates and I drove to Sydney on five cylinders, without checking oil and water to start out.
A Renault Dauphine Gordini.
A lime green Thames Van with full size lounge suite in the rear.
Started to get better with an EH Holden Ute and then onto the moderns.
Hope you enjoyed my Motoring Tales. Cheers, Richard
