Bolly Blog

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The Puma is alive and well.

No, not the excellent Puma clubman made in Adelaide, I'm talking about that Brazilian Puma, which is now a South African Puma.
This came across Paul Ewins' desk last week.

Monday, November 7, 2011

More local products at Tallangatta

Yes, I'd even venture to suggest this Morris Commercial LC5 was put together here. It'd save bringing them over from the UK.

I used to have an LC3, a remnant from my da's milk round. Being older, it stood much taller on much larger diameter wheels and the headlights stood on pods. Midland Motors gave me a clean swap for a stock as a rock 1935 Ford V8 roadster, one of the nicest cars I've ever had.
When I worked at Chrysler Australia they used to make utes similar to this at the Finsbury truck plant, albeit without the big donk and blower.

Here's some products from the big 3 from the good old days.

Another locally built Ford, a 1957 Customline.

But being a coupe, this old fella was probably from as far afield as New Zealand. (Not so the caravan).

Sunday, November 6, 2011

A bit of (mainly) Aussie GM at Tallangatta.

Two Buick 6 roadsters at the same event. Must be heaven.
This is a '26 model. However I didn't think the one piece windscreen came out until 1928.

.....and this is a '27 model. You know how I know? Well, instead of the headlights sitting on a bar, the bar joins the 2 headlights.

This is why I said "mainly", because even though this looks like an Aussie assembled '56 Chev, the steering wheel is on the wrong side.

Not so with the '58 Biscayne which has been "brought up to date" with the lowrider treatment.

......and this '59. It must be one of the few six cylinder ones left, as the owners scramble to fit V8s and pretend they are something they never were.

Tallangatta 50s Festival.

At roughly about the same time as the Motorclassica, Wayne Tonkin took the Triden to the Classic Car and Motorcycle Show held in conjunction with the Tallangatta 50s Festival.

Another sporty that was there was this big Healey 3000 Mk.1

On the day there were some fine examples of English and French PVTs but some of this over the top American iron caught Wayne's eye.

Like this big black Galaxie.

.....and the white convertible.

As if one of these Cadillacs needs to be any more outrageous.

When these Cadillac hearses outlive their use by date they tend to come to Australia for people to gawk at at car shows.

A few bikes outside the pub.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Motorclassica part 2.

This photo wouldn't load before, but what series of pictures would be complete without a decent Pantera?

Motorclassica 2011.

Here are some of the shots taken by Peter G at the Motorclassica the other week.
First up the Hurricane.
Peter doesn't recall the car being so "metalflakey" in 1969. Then again, he was a 13 year old viewing it in a tin shed at the Bendigo Show.

Did you know there were 3 Hurricanes? There was also a red one and a white one. These two were developed in Adelaide. The engineering was a joint effort between GMH Woodville North and Carr Fasteners. One of the projects Carr Fasteners were charged with was the hydraulics for the lift up canopy. When the red car arrived there, there was no way of getting out of the car unless there were 2 big strong blokes to lift the canopy up from outside. The car also had conventional rear wheel arches without the skirts. The pivoting steering column was from a Cadillac of the time. The gold car never came to Adelaide in those initial stages. Its first appearance was at the motor show. By the way, that new Holden engine was a development of a Repco industrial engine.

The mighty Charger! Was that Hemi Orange or Vitamin C? And look how tiny the Matra is.

The Muira, a thing of great beauty.

Look who owns and drives the Repco Brabham now. His name is prominent above former drivers Jack Brabham and Bib Stillwell.
This is Peter's rare E-Type, below, parked outside.