Sunday, July 3, 2011

Collections in America.

All sorts of things crop up in American collections. Look at Bruce Weiner's Microcar Museum in Madison, Georgia. The place is chockers with all these "little" cars, enough to make Ian Wilson jealous I'll bet.....and check this out, not one Dart, but a couple.
Oops, make that three.
Zetas too.
At the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista, California, lo and behold, an old Melbourne tram.
Over at Houston, Texas, the Booker-Lowe Art Gallery is not the only gallery in the United States dedicated to Australian Aboriginal art.
When I was a very young bloke, along with my dad, I had a job as a stockman (BYOH) at the Gepps Cross Abattoirs. It was mainly chasing decrepit old animals into the boiling down works to be turned into soap and drafting train loads of brumbies which were popular at the time for dog meat. Anyway, one day a train came in loaded with camels from the outback. They had been bought by some camel collector in Texas and if I remember correctly they were "pink dromedaries" and Australia was the only country where they still existed.
Anyway they were all despatched to the US. Well, all except one. Somehow one young one was left behind so we took him home. He lived then in our stable yard at Fullarton until one day a woman was hanging her washing out in the flats next door and Ahab put his head over the fence to say good morning. She rang the Unley cops and they rang the council and before long the dog catcher turns up to go crook about an unregistered camel and poor old Ahab ended up at Monarto. Anyway, the point I was making was that Americans will collect anything.

There are no Bolwells in America that I know of. There was one in California but that has returned to Australia (the wide bodied one) and that now resides in New South Wales. I have not heard of any JWFs over there either. However, Roo's Buchanan lives in Oregon and races in Historic events on the West Coast.

3 comments:

degruch said...

The Zeta Sport was an ex-Colonel Light Gardens car...shame it went OS, it was the best example in Australia I'd ever seen (only 17,000 miles from memory).

John L said...

There was, of course, another Zeta sports in Col. Light Gardens, the VW powered one, because that's where Albert Ludgate lived.

degruch said...

I didn't realise Col Light Gdns was such a hotbed of Zeta action! I even got a joyride in a Runabout from the Sport owner once...lots of fun. Happy days.