Aussie Motoring

There are some interesting examples of fine old cars hiding in the backstreets of Hervey Bay and the surrounding villages and here is one of them. I’ve seen this beautiful old 1963 Tbird around Torbanlea - a village just off the Bruce Highway between Maryborough and Childers on several occasions but I’ve never had my camera with me until today.

This time I had my camera and it was parked out on the footpath.

If vintage American cars turn you on and you would like to own one then this baby is for sale … but I doubt that it comes cheap.

And there is one in Australia.

The Bricklin SV-1 was an unusual sports car. It was built in Canada mainly from parts sourced in Detroit and was only for sale in the United States.

The car featured gull-winged doors and an acrylic body built around a roll cage, side guard rails and a shock absorbing bumper bar front and rear. While you might wonder about the safety of a car made out of acrylic it was, in fact, a very strong and safe design that exceeded the safety requirments of its time.

The Bricklin came with two different motor/transmission combinations. The first 155 Bricklins built in 1974 were powered by an AMC 360 cubic inch V8 that was coupled to a 4 speed manual transmission. The remainder of the 1974 build coupled the AMC motor to a 3 speed automatic transmission.

The cars built in 1975 were powered by a 351 cubic inch Ford V8, a 3 speed automatic transmission and standard equipment included air conditioning, an AM-FM stereo, a digital clock and many other features that were advanced for its time.

Only one model was ever built even though production commenced in June of 1974 and continued through into September 1975 with some vehicles being completed after the factory went into bankruptcy and closed its doors. In that time a total of 2854 cars were built of which 1500 still thought to exist although only 590 are documented.

The current owners reside in almost every state of Ameriica, several have found their way back to Canada and one is in Spain while another has recently been shipped to Germany. At one time it was known that there was a Bricklin residing in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales but the Bricklin International Owners Club has lost contact with the owner. If any one knows the whereabouts of it please post in the comments section.

You can read more about this unusual sports car at the Bricklin site and I would like to thank Michael Mitchell from the Bricklin International Owners Club for his assistance in compiling this piece. I would also like to thank the owners of VIN 1168 and VIN 2355 for allowing me to use their photos.

Feast your eyes on a fully restored Holden Torana XU1, the dream car of half the petrol-heads in Australia in the early 1970s.

The XU1 was a car that won touring car races and some of the roughest rallies in Australia when driven by such household names as Peter Brock and Colin Bond.

This particular car was one of the first to be delivered in Brisbane but Ivan, the current owner, found it in a very sad and sorry state. It’s now been lovingly restored to it’s original condition and colour and still features the original running gear.

This beautiful car will soon be joined by a fully restored Holden Monaro - one of only a few that came off the production line with a T-bar auto.

Ivan happily let me take a couple of photos for Aussie Motoring on the condition that I make it plain that this car is NOT for sale

I should explain that Aussie Motoring is brought to you from Hervey Bay in beautiful sub-tropical Queensland and, while business usually keeps us confined to Hervey Bay, we do sometimes get to go a little further afield.

Today (Good Friday) was one of those days. Kids arrived at 3.30am from further north so we kept them up and took them over to Tin Can Bay to feed the dolphins. While we were there we came across this beautiful creature:

I believe that it is a 1947 Riley RMC.

If it is a Riley of that vintage then it was completely handbuilt and the dashboard scene in this photo is genuine polished timber. Just over 500 of these cars were built.

This beautiful car was powered by a 2.5 litre 100 hp engine that gave it a top speed of 100 mph (160 kph).

In case you don’t recognise the name or the image let me introduce you to the 1954 Ford Zephyr Mk1 sedan. The Ford Zephyr was an English car manufactured between 1951 and 1955. The engine for this car was a specially designed 6 cylinder overhead valve engine with a capacity of 2262cc.

In 1954 Ford introduced an upmarket version of the Zephyr known as the Zodiac and the car shown in the photo is thought to be one of those luxury vehicles. Of course, luxury was a relative term back in 1954 and by today’s standards the Zodiac would be considered somewhat spartan.

The Zodiac specifications included:

Two-tone paint

White-wall tyres

Twin auxiliary lamps and gold plated badges (which seem to be missing from the car in the photo)

Leather upholstery

Heater

Clock

Arm rests and a

Radio

The Zephyr also came as a station wagon.

The Zephyr’s were quite popular here in Australia where they competed directly with the FJ Holden.

Few Zephyrs remain on Australian roads today and the example in the photograph was taken at a small vintage and veteran car display in Hervey Bay Qld in 2005.