So, in the absence of an "on the spot" photo of an extremely historical motor vehicle -
A hundred years ago this Talbot was the first car to be driven from Adelaide to Darwin and now it's being prepared to do the trip again.
Drat!
here are the other cars.
11 comments:
Twas the anniversary of that car trip earlier this month!
Love those cars, very easy on the eye ;)
I love the look of antique cars. When I was a kid, every summer at Wells Beach, Maine, some kind of auto club got together and all these people drove their vintage cars down the main drag. Really fun.
Old cars are cool.
The Talbot is still somewhere "on the journey" Northwards. An amazing feat, that original journey - if one considers the conditions 100 or so years ago.
My first car was a 1949 Austin Bantam. Dad bought it when I was about 14. It would do all of 25 miles an hour and when I could get the little fucker started I would drive it around our little town some.
One day a lady called my dad and complained that I was 'speeding up and down the streets'.
He just laughed at her, then came home and whipped my ass. Fucking parents are idiots.
I like the idea, but how did they get fuel supplies on the road up there one hundred years ago?
My first car was a 1936 Ford eight hp,REGO S938, for which the princely sum of approx 250 Singapore bucks was paid in 1953.
It had previously had an untold number of drivers, including the nippon army during WW2
Excerpt from memoirs follows.
While Mary and I were driving from Singapore, I strayed onto a one-way stretch of the Bukit Timah Road and met one of Bill Haines’ colleagues. Good fortune was on my side. Being as I was Lt Haines’ neighbour, he smiled and said, “Try and have a safe journey home.”
The last time I used the S938 was on our way home to Johore Bahru when I knocked down a ceremonial arch on the main street, which had been erected to welcome home the Sultan of Johore. I escaped in a downpour of rain, which was the reason I had not seen the arch in the first place. I took the car to the local oriental repair artisan who I had known previously, and he said he had been expecting me. He had seen it all happen while waiting near the post office. The car was later driven to the base and sold.
but how did they get fuel supplies on the road up there one hundred years ago?
Good question RH .. camel train? Must look into it.
there is another "motoring" story floating about - re the eccentric lady who, some many years ago, took a "taxicab" around Aust, must look up the details of that one also.
I post these things as some sort of vague "yearning for yesteryear" when motor vehicles were few and drivers were hardy.
Have just seen a doco on the ABC "The cars that ate China". Pedal power to Petroleum Pollution in 20 years .. sheesh!
PS: RH, you're supposed to read the details in the link supplied .. heh.
ALISON RUSSELL: They had to put a lot of planning into it. They sent fuel supplies and their other supplies up by train as far as Oodnadatta and from there with camel trains up further north. They also sent supplies with a steamer to Port Darwin and then south along that way as well so all along they had petrol supplies waiting for them.
Thanks but I hardly ever follow links (and have a prejudice against women named Allison-with-one-L anyway*).
The lady you mention might be Shakespeare-quoting Bea Miles from Sydney who believed all public transport should be free.
I think she did make a trip in a taxi to Perth or somewhere but actually paid for it that time.
*heh
I do love a road adventure, in my silly youth I took a motorbike from Copenhagen to Peshawar. I cursed at the time, but am proud of it now. Unfortunately the only thrill I get these days is challenging the back road to Werribee with the gauge near empty.
I saw a few minutes of that China show, right at the end. I think it's a case of Westernisation in the space of three years.
(Please say hello to Miss Jahteh, dear lady, it's her birthday today)
-Robert.
Post a Comment