Big Boys Toys Blokes and Their Magnificent Obsessions

Scott McGregor grew up on the family farm at Orange and then later in the family’s news­paper building in the heart of the town of Mudgee. He graduated in acting from NIDA in 1979 and chalked up a succession of lead roles in TV mini-series, soapies and stage productions before concentrating on presenting. Scott has made a name for himself both as the DIY guy on shows like Room for Improvement and Better Homes and Gardens and as the train-mad traveller in his Railway Adventure and Down the Line series of travel documentaries seen on TV both in Australia and overseas. More recently his focus has been on Australian history and he currently presents programs for the History Channel and leads tours of the world’s great railways for Renaissance Tours and the Powerhouse Museum. For many years he owned and operated the railway-buff mecca ‘Off The Rails’, specialising in industrial antiques. He has spent half his life creating the ultimate bloke’s ‘Big Toy’ retreat ‘Ruwenzori’ in Mudgee using vintage railway carriages. He lives near Byron Bay with his wife Wendy Gray and their two daughters.

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Blokesand andtheir their magnificent magnificent obsessions Blokes obsessions

Scott McGregor

First published in 2008 Copyright © Scott McGregor 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act. Arena, an imprint of Allen & Unwin 83 Alexander Street Crows Nest NSW 2065 Australia Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100 Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218 Email: [email protected] Web: www.allenandunwin.com National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: McGregor, Scott, 1957   Big boys’ toys : blokes and their magnificent obsessions / Scott McGregor    978 1 74175 517 6 (pbk.)   Toolsheds--Social aspects--Australia--Anecdotes.    Men--Australia--Social life and customs--Anecdotes.    Australia--Social life and customs--Anecdotes. 392.36 Internal design by Christabella Design Set in 12/15.5 pt Bembo by Bookhouse, Sydney Printed in Australia by BPA Print Group, Burwood Front cover plane image: Col Pay in his P-40N Kittyhawk. Photo by Craig P. Justo. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedication

The inspirational Col Pay

A

s Col Pay led me toward a giant hangar   at the edge of Scone Airport in the   Hunter Valley, NSW, he chatted about how a flight in a Moth Minor at the age of five got him hooked on planes for life, and how as a kid he would sit on the fence at the edge of the busy wartime airfield at Narromine, dreaming of one day flying one of those iconic warbirds. He certainly achieved his dream, chalking up over 30,000 hours in 120 different types of aircraft—many of them his own. As we stepped through the access door he turned to me and said with an imperceptible grin, ‘Welcome to the toy shop.’ In the process of interviewing people for this book, Col’s name popped up a number

of times as someone whose knowledge and enthusiasm had been a big influence on others. Who else would have the guts and skill to pilot a Wright Flyer replica or take to the sky to test-fly a mate’s 50-year-old warbird? Tragically, a few months after I spent that inspiring morning with him, poring over his collection and talking about his life and passions, Col was killed doing what he loved best, flying. To be precise, he was up there at the age of 75 testing a new device for skimming up water which would dramatically speed up aerial firebombing operations— adventurous as ever. Col’s strength of character was seen in the work he did during his 50 years of flying. Described as the unassuming leader of aerial

Col in his toy shop with his rare CA-18 Mark 21 Mustang in the background

In full flight in his Curtiss P-40N Kittyhawk Photo by Craig Justo

agriculture and fire-bombing in Australia, he was recognised for his work as an instructor and for improving safety standards and operations throughout his long career; his many innovations included pioneering the use of agricultural aircraft in firefighting. He was also a fellow whose clearly defined passions saw him go to extraordinary lengths to pursue his special interest in warplanes. His painstaking and faithful restorations included a Mustang, several Kittyhawks and the first Spitfire to be returned to the skies over Australia. The flying displays he did with these planes and his work preserving Australian aviation heritage were legendary. Col’s passion for his toys and his infectious enthusiasm symbolise what this book is all about, and his words to me as we left his hangar that day still ring in my ears: ‘The harder I work, the luckier I get.’ It is a great honour to celebrate Col’s life by dedicating Big Boys’ Toys to him.

Foreword ‘Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional’—Chili Davis (This isn’t the case for everyone of course, but it’s a bottler of a maxim for those who truly make the world a more fascinating place.)

W

hen Scott McGregor told me he was planning a book called Big Boys’ Toys, I knew exactly where he was going. Scott’s arguably one of Australia’s best known railway enthusiasts, a bloke whose passion and enthusiasm hit you like a cow wandering in the path of the Spirit of Progress. The book’s title immediately struck me to the core and then the bit inside the core: the time is right to celebrate what lesser individuals might disparagingly term ‘eccentrics’, those whose peccadilloes extend to paddle-steamers and top-fuellers, Centurion tanks and space shuttles.

This book is about those whose passions lie with railway hand-cars, whose nostrils vacuum up every molecule of the tangy aromas of cordite and black-powder, who understand the joys of ethanol and burning rubber, cubic inches and Weiand superchargers. It’s about Australia’s elite enthusiasts—those who’ll put on three tonnes of chain-mail and armour and belt the living daylights out of each other with broadswords, who realise the all-importance of screwing the bungs in the floor of an army duck before driving into the dam, who yearn for a 1930s Leyland double-decker bus simply to vii

hear the heavy, rolling-purr of its whopping diesel engine. I get this. My first memory is of a 1920s Dennis fire-engine. Not that I was born in the twenties, mind you; it’s just that there was a clapped-out old Dennis stuffed down the side of a Total petrol station on the NSW Central Coast where we were spending Christmas holidays. Frankly, the old fire-engine was a bit of a ruin. The salt air had chewed its way through the panels and the grass growing up past axle height had robbed this once-proud civil guardian of any last traces of dignity. I was only three, but I can clearly remember standing on the running board, studying the intricacy of the fine brass louvres riveted along the bonnet, the long mudguards, the massive brass radiator sporting the Dennis brand.

The irrepressible Warren Brown, ready for any emergency in his beloved 1928 Dennis fire-engine

viii  Big Boys’ Toys

To his eternal credit, my 15-year-old brother did the only thing a red-blooded enthusiast could do: he pestered the buggery out of my dad to buy the thing. Dad responded with the sort of response dads are programmed to give—‘A bloody fire-engine? What do we want a bloody fire-engine for?’ Needless to say, we didn’t come home with the Dennis that Christmas, but the memory of that day stuck with me. I was not particularly into fire-engines, only that model Dennis, and nearly 40 years later I now have two, a ’28 and a ’33. I don’t know why—it must be something to do with having a happy childhood. Or perhaps I worry too much about the house burning down. Being an enthusiast can be a lonely life at times—it’s hard to find people who’ll sit down with you for a chinwag about Model T Ford tyre valves, but that’s the load we must carry. And it seems in this day and age that anything fun is either frowned upon, or banned, or both. Big Boys’ Toys puts paid to

the wowsers and naysayers who scoff at the idea of someone ploughing their passions into a Wurlitzer organ, or ploughing their paypacket into a jet fighter. These are passions to be championed, not fobbed off as some sort of quirky folly. But every now and then there is a victory for the true believer—the big toy enthusiast who stands his ground, stands up for what’s big and noisy and will probably leak oil everywhere. When I was a kid growing up in the suburbs in the seventies, the bloke around the corner decided to install a narrowgauge railway line on his quarter-acre block. Not only that, but he then put in a set of points to create a siding, on which he somehow parked two fully operational steam locomotives and a diesel shunter. An immaculately permed neighbour with an all-weather expression of disapproval and a face like a cat’s bum complained to the council that these monstrosities were a blight on the idyll of Permalum and brick veneer that constituted Foreword  ix

our suburb. Mercifully the old duck was overruled and the locos stayed, much to the delight of all the kids around, including the biggest kid in the suburb, the bloke around the corner with the best Hornby train set imaginable. Sometimes common sense will prevail and big toy enthusiasts can get on with the serious business of having fun! Scott needs to be commended and congratulated for Big Boys’ Toys, bringing the shrinking violets of the big toy world to the greater public’s attention.

x  Big Boys’ Toys

But in all of this, a final question needs to be asked: where do these passions for big toys come from? Is it genetic? Chromosomal? Or does the primal urge to own a monster truck or a traction engine arise from unexplored and unknown depths within? Are the people in this book, who represent only a tiny sliver of the very tip of the iceberg of big toy enthusiasts, part of some super race? Unquestionably. Warren Brown

Contents The inspirational Col Pay

Three

v

Foreword

vii

Preface

xiii

Acknowledgments

xvi

Workhorses The toy shop

One

Winning isn’t everything When ‘boys’ band together

When small toys go big

129

Four

1

Battle hardened

133

32

Five

Two

Out of this world

69

Purely for pleasure

163

Useful links

218

Notes

222

37 64

xi

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Preface ‘The only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys’

I

first cottoned on to the notion of ‘big toys’ at about the age when memories start getting burnt onto the mental harddrive. My brother Alex, who was nine years older than me (already a very big boy in my eyes), and his mates decided to resurrect an old jalopy that Dad had retired to the shed years earlier. We called it Sarah, for no real reason except that everything on that farm, animate or inanimate, was named—usually after a film star. It was a 1927 Dodge sedan that had been remodelled as a tray-back farm truck—a kind of home-made version of that other great Australian invention, the ute. What fascinated me was how these cool

and resourceful teenagers took to the old bomb like a ravenous pack, crawling all over it, fiddling with its gizzards, grooming and resuscitating it. One day the heads reappeared from under the bonnet and the frenzy stopped, leaving Alex in the driver’s seat and his mate Mick (the biggest of the boys) to throw all he had into the crank handle. The resulting burst of smoke and the convulsions of the ancient engine as it coughed back into life drew a unified hail of cheers, and was proceeded by a miracle I thought I would never see—the old beast began to move. Much to Dad’s consternation it became the gang’s much-loved xiii

bush-basher which I was allowed to share (only if I shut up and kept out of the way). We belted around the back paddock, guys hanging off the running board, and old Sarah guzzling more oil than fuel, doing spins and tricks I never thought possible. I was in total awe of these mechanical magicians, and the years of oily fun we had with that old bucket of bolts has left a deep impression and sharpened my receptors to

Small boys with their big toy. The author (centre, wearing helmet) and friends on his 7th birthday with the reinvigorated Sarah

xiv  Big Boys’ Toys

other stories of how deep and lasting pleasure can be derived from the relationship between a boy and his toy—no matter what age they both may be. This book is a collection of yarns following the simple premise that a decent obsession can be healthy thing, and a life lived with passion for someone or something is a life well lived. My initial inspiration for this book began with a small collection of guys I knew who had some kind of really unusual plaything. They all had interesting stories, as did their ‘toys’, so I was on a mission to extend the list just to see what else was out there. Anything of any rarity or antiquity, or that offered some kind of extreme experience, was on my radar, and, while I’ve gathered nearly 40 guys (a drop in the ocean) who represent a broad range of interests, this book is by no means a definitive list of all the things you would consider to be in the realm of big boys’ toys. For a start I gloss over toys used in sport and for hobbies, and I just hint at

all those wonderful toys you can walk into a showroom and buy. I wasn’t concerned with the biggest, best or most expensive either, as the real satisfaction the guys get from their toys is derived from the fun of just finding, fixing and then ‘playing’. To be immersed in the world of enthusiastic endeavour is a wonderful thing—it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve got, the important thing is to be a big kid at heart! The guys in this book have made a commitment to something which has required imagination, invention and creativity to accomplish.They are doers who have achieved things that leave the rest of us gobsmacked and amazed. It would be remiss of me not to mention one major part of many of these stories, and indeed my own. Behind most of these ‘boys’—and on occasions beside—is a wife, girlfriend, partner, parent or child who gives support in many, many ways. In some cases

they are co-owners, and I suspect do a lot of the work! My wife and partner-in-crime, Wendy, is in this league; she will glaze over at the mention of the words ‘rolling stock’ but will happily leap into action if and when she sees me in need of some inspiration, direction or even an extra set of hands, as is the case with this book. We owe a great deal to these patient supporters who are often our captive audience, biggest fans and therapists all rolled into one. Mark Twain wrote, ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do’. I guarantee that nobody in this book will be on the disappointed side, and I challenge you all to follow your dreams— after all there’s another great saying (from someone much less literary): ‘he who dies with the most toys wins’. Scott McGregor

Preface  xv

Acknowledgments

A

book like this requires a lot of research,   and I’ve been assisted by many wonder  ful people and organisations. Here, listed alphabetically, are most of those who’ve contributed in some way to the writing of this book—my apologies to anyone I’ve left out, and thank you to you all! Gerry Aarts, Warwick Allison, Dave Argles, John Arnott, Peter Arundel, John Atkinson, Bill Beamish, Russell and Jarrod Beer, Graham Black, Rod Blackmore and the Theatre Organ Society of Australia, Rusty Bodinnar, Wayne Britton, Anthony Browell, Warren Brown, Colin Brown and the Australian Armoured Vehicles Association, Dennis Bullard, Gary Byford, Mal Cameron, Charlie Camilleri and Bathurst Joyflights, Ron Campbell, James

Cheshire and the Condottiere, Paul Connor, Brian Cook, John Couzens, Robert Crossie, Paul and Susan Day and the Lake Lefroy Landsailing Club, Bob De La Hunty and Historical Aircraft Restoration Society Inc, Ross De Lacey, Di Ebdon, Guy Ellis, Warwick Ellis, Wes Ellis and the Rowan Artillery, Billie Fairclough, Clive Featherby, Darryl Findlay, Mark Flynn, Col Foulkes, Bill Gale, Trevor Gaunt, Roland Geilen, John Glastonbury and 3801 Ltd, Reg Goodwin, Roy Gould, Eddie Gray, David Griffiths, Phil Harward, John Haskell, Keith and Eric Hayden, Eddie Hayman, Bruce Holt, Julie Hourigan, John Jeremy, Kelvin Jobling, Rex Jones, Gavin Jones and the NSW Corps of Marines, Craig Justo, Brett Kenworth, Steven Larcombe, George Lecke, xvi

Allan Levinson, Bill Lloyd, Ray Love, Brooke and Kim Lucas, Andrew Macrae, Aaron McClintock, Ken and George McHugh, Dan and Wendy McLay, Tony Miller, Robert Mills, Jeff Muller, Blake Nikolic, Eric Norton, Larry O’Toole from Australian Street Rodding Magazine, Ross Pay, Phil from Badger Photography, Craig Pink, Andrew Polidano, Jeff Powell, Dan Power, John Preston, David Rowe, Edward Rowe, Eric Rymer, Stan and Marg Sainty, Peter Sanderson and friends, Alex Scheibner, Milton Shaw, John Shaw and the Nunawading Wargames Association, Geoff Sheard, Jon Simpson and the Sydney Heritage Fleet, Richard Simpson, Julian Smith—­Websmiths, Sol Solomon, Oliver Strewe, John Thiele, Mark Thomson, Warwick Thomson, Alan Tranter,

Barry and John Tulloch, Todd Vaille, John Vetter and Mudgee Observatory, Jim and Jenny Walker and the Turon Technology Museum, Georgia Wall, Jeff Watson, Ian and Filippa White, Mark White and the Museum of Fire, Kim Williams from Harley-Davidson, Bob Wilson, Janet Wilson and Heliflite Australia, Coni Zangari and Sunseeker Australia. And of course a big thank you to the wonderful people who have turned a dream into reality, and without whom this book wouldn’t exist: Jude McGee and her team at Allen & Unwin, my agents Lisa Hanrahan and Mark Byrne, and of course my wife, Wendy Gray, whose much appreciated support, input and brilliant editing skills have been instrumental in keeping things firmly on track. Acknowledgments  xvii

One

Winning isn’t everything A hard-won victory is as sweet as it gets but we all know having a go is half the fun. The journey a boy and his toy go on in the quest to win can offer some surprising benefits along the way. This sample of committed characters have some of the more unusual kinds of toys designed for power and pursuit, where the real thrill is exploring the extremes of man and machine. 1

Outlawed Kelvin—the tractor-pulling champion of Quambatook Big boy: Kelvin AKA “JOBBO” Toy: Outlaw Too Description: Custom-built, super-modified tractor puller Power: 1100–1220 hp Top speed: ‘About 40 kph with the sled holding it back— without the sled you wouldn’t know’ Weight: 3 tonnes weighted to 4.2 tonne in heavy class Size: 5.2 m long Date in service: 1992 Value: ‘It would probably sell for $15,000 but cost a lot more in parts and labour to make’

First toy: ‘Pressed tin toy tractor—an E27 Fordson. My dad had a real one and they found me a toy one that was nearly identical’ Other toys: Vintage motorbike—‘A 1925 Raleigh that my dad owned’ Old Series 2 Field-Marshall tractor E27 Fordson tractor (a real one this time)—‘Dad bought it around ’48’ ‘HJ Statesman and a Holden one-tonne truck waiting for restoration or customisation’

Y

ou know you’re in big boy heartland when you come around the bend on the outskirts of a town and the traditional billboard extolling the virtues of the community you’re about to embrace reads ‘Welcome to Quambatook—the Tractor Pulling Capital of Australia’. There’s been

some serious tractor pulling going on in this small Victorian town since the mid-1970s. The first pull in Australia was at nearby Elmore, but the local Apex club in Quambatook got their first event going six months later, at the local football field, in 1976. The Quambatook Tractor Pullers Association was 3

duly formed, and the town has hosted the Australian Championships ever since. Kelvin, known to all as Jobbo, has been pulling tractors in Quambatook since the early days of the sport, and the yard around his shed is littered with all the accumulated components needed to create a champion tractor like Outlaw Too. He’s the ultimate recycler, and Outlaw Too shows what junk can become in the hands of a master. Three chunky V8 Chevy engines feed into the one drive shaft, with a maze of exhaust pipes and extractors making it look like some kind of mobile oil refinery. The whole construction is made from bits and pieces reclaimed from a 1948 W9 International, a more recent John Deere, and various others that have been like tractor ‘organ donors’. Even the giant tyres are rejects that he’ll spend weeks re-carving by hand for better grip. With tractor pulling, you have to drag a heavy sled along a 100-metre track. In the old days a horse would pull a barn door loaded with people, but these days the sleds 4  Big Boys’ Toys

are pretty hi-tech, offering progressively more resistance as they’re pulled along. It’s a great spectacle as the tractors grunt and strain and throw up truckloads of dirt and dust in a confusion of noise and smoke. The aim is to pull the sled all the way to the end (a ‘full pull’) without the sled stopping you first. If two drivers do a full pull more weight is added and you have a ‘pull off ’ to see who the outright winner is. Speed, traction and power are what it’s all about. For Jobbo, it’s in the genes. ‘My grandfather was the local district mechanic on the old horse-drawn stuff and the Model T Ford days—and my dad did help out doing repairs for others locally. We’re related to the Coad brothers, who won the first Armstong 500, which moved and became the Bathurst 500, and as soon as I could see over the desk I’d be in Dad’s workshop tinkering with the stuff lying around. When I was 15, I bought George Coad’s racing go-kart, and I’ve been hotting something up, or blowing something up, ever since!’

After much success in the 1980s in the mini modified class with his first tractor, Outlaw, in 1992 Kelvin moved up to the super modifieds, creating his three-engined Outlaw Too for the Australian Championships. ‘A couple of nights before the event there were three of us just throwing everything at it for 40 hours straight in the shed, I don’t think I left it. At about half past two in the afternoon they said “you’re on the track”, so we went out and did a test run. When Outlaw Too came out on that first day it just looked like this heap of junk thrown together. It had no cladding then, and whatever exhaust system we could throw on it.’ Despite its looks, it had the pulling power to take the title. ‘Winning the 3.3-tonne Australian Championship, that was probably one of the highlights of my career, it meant the most to me.’ The sport of tractor pulling continues to get bigger and bigger. An impressive purposebuilt facility was constructed on the edge

Photo by Roland Geilen

of Quambatook in 1990, and its Easter Pull (which is the Australian Championships) now attracts around 50 entrants and 6000 spectators annually. Jobbo sums up what having this kind of interest has meant for him, ‘I’ve always got pleasure out of making junk work and beating what I call the “cheque-book tractors”. A commentator once said of me “he builds his tractors out of the junk yard”, and someone else said “well, that was rude”, and I said “no, that was a compliment”, ’cause if we can build something out of someone else’s junk and win with it, that means more to me than if I had the money to go out and buy it or pay somebody to do it.’ Winning isn’t everything  5

The World’s Other Fastest Indian Peter’s 1924 Indian motorcycle Big boy: Peter Toy: Vintage Indian motorbike Description: Eight-valve Indian Factory Racer Key info: Dry-sump, 61 cube (999 cc) motor (number A61-4), 6000 rpm Power: 100 hp Top speed: 158.73 mph (world record for vintage bikes up to 1350 cc running on methanol) Weight: 160 kg Size: Wheelbase 1530 mm Seat height 690 mm

Date in service: 1924 Value: ‘The closest you could get is a similar model that sold in the US recently for US$175,000’ First toy: ‘Dad made me a billycart around the age of four and l remember it tipped over and l broke my wrist— the first of many broken bones’ Other toys: 54 other Indian motorbikes 1954 XK120 Jaguar KTM 450 Polaris 700 Quad Air Nautique ski boat

A

ll of our big boys’ toys have a certain aesthetic appeal, especially to their owners. Peter, however, really lifts the tone when he refers to his collection of vintage Indian motorbikes as ‘threedimensional art’. It’s easy to see them in this light when they are all lined up on show in

his garage. Mood lighting, polished wooden floors and comfortable lounges complement the ‘pieces’. For Peter, form and finish are as much a part of the machines’ appeal as their performance, and it’s the visuals that got him into it in the first place. ‘I got my first bike when 7

The bright Indians. Even the famous Indian head on the fender is illuminated

I was 13,’ he recalls. ‘An old 250 two-stroke Jawa, which I’ve still got. My mate Les had an Indian and I just loved the colour, the gold pin stripe, the burgundy paintwork.’ All it took was the cash from his first job at age 17, and Les’s bike coming on the market, to be off and racing on his life-long love affair 8  Big Boys’ Toys

with the legendary Indian. His collection now includes the world-record-holding eightvalve 1924 Indian Factory Racer, which for good reason takes pride of place. But for Peter it’s more than a collection. ‘The best part of having the bikes is using them,’ he says. ‘I’ve done the hard yards tooling around till 2 a.m. often enough . . . what is fun is having people over and taking off for a ride.’ Peter’s rare eight-valve racer is without a doubt a star, but what happened in March 2002 on the expanse of Lake Gairdner in South Australia surprised everyone. Peter and his team set out to see how fast their 1924 Indian would go, knowing that the previous record of 135 mph, set by Max Bubeck, would be hard to match. Preparation included changing the seat and handlebars, revising the rear gearing and adding special dual float bowls on the twin carbies to prevent fuel starvation during each five-mile pass. With methanol in the tank and perfect conditions on the salt, Peter was set. ‘We thought it

would run maybe 140–145 mph, but on the first pass it went 153.6 mph and it was only pulling 5700 rpm. So we lowered the gearing by two teeth on the rear sprocket and the next run we pulled 158.73 mph (255.4 kmh).’ It was a stunning result but it also shook up Peter a bit as it began to wobble after hitting some washouts in the surface of the salt about halfway along: ‘For a second I thought I was going to go down.’ Peter has all kinds of plans, including reaching the elusive world record for an Indian of 183 mph, set by Burt Munro of The World’s Fastest Indian fame. For the moment, though, he’s focused on an intrafamily challenge, as his older son, Patrick, is putting the finishing touches to his 1928 eight-valve Harley in preparation for a father/ son Indian/Harley challenge on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. As Peter says, ‘I’ve been obliged to infect my children with the passion.’

An impressive tribe of Indians

Peter with his record breaking 1974 Indian Photo courtesy of Peter Arundel

Winning isn’t everything  9

The Indian motorcycle

T

he Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company, based in Springfield, Massachusetts, is America’s oldest motorcycle brand and was once the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. The company was started in 1901 by two bicycle racers, George Hendee and Oscar Hedstrom, who produced a small bicycle/motorcycle with a top speed of 30 mph (50 kph). It was a huge success, and sales were boosted when the company released a V-twin engine in 1907. By 1913, they produced 32,000 motorcycles annually. Indian brought out bikes in a deep red colour which became one of its trademarks. Racing success came early, with an overwhelming 1-2-3 finish in the 1911 Isle of Man TT, the world’s most prestigious motorcycle race. Indians were blooded in battle in World War One, when motorcycles and horses were all that could get through the mud of Flanders. The Scout and Chief V-twins, introduced in the early 1920s, became Indian’s most successful models and ensured the Springfield firm’s survival through the Depression and into its ‘golden era’. In 1940 Indian sold nearly as many motorcycles as its major rival, Harley-Davidson, and was producing a beautiful

10  Big Boys’ Toys

bike that offered a more comfortable ride due to its sprung frame. At the time, Indian represented the only true American-made heavyweight cruiser alternative to Harley-Davidson. All models got the classic large skirted fenders, the cool Indian head logo on the tank and combined with the dark red colour they were an absolute icon on the road and the racetrack. In 1950 the V-Twin engine was enlarged to 1300 cc (80 ci) and telescopic forks were adopted. But Indian’s financial problems, caused by bad management and the introduction of a range of poorly designed singles and parallel twins, meant that few bikes were built, and production of the Chief ended in 1953. Since then a legion of enthusiasts and specialist companies has kept the Indian name alive on the roads of the world, and thanks to their efforts the motorcycles are more sought after than ever. The World’s Fastest Indian is a feature film about New Zealander Burt Munro, who used a modified 1920s Indian Scout to set a number of land speed records. In 1967 he set a class record of 183.58 mph (295.44 kph), and in qualifying he made a one-way run of 190.07 mph, the fastest ever officially recorded speed on an Indian.

Winning isn’t everything  11

Blowin’ in the Wind Paul and his land yacht, Vindicator Big boy: Paul Toy: Vindicator Description: Balsa cord streamlined speed attempt land yacht Built by: Bill Finch Power: 0 hp Top speed: 144.4 kph Weight: 165 kg Size: 20' long Date in service: 1992 Value: ‘Cost $30–$35,000 in ’92 at a time when I was building smaller yachts for $2–$3K’ First toy: ‘I was a ten-pound Pom, and the day before we

left England for good in 1969 we went to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and I got the little Matchbox car as a present. It was the only toy I could bring with me. It’s gone now and I’ve been looking everywhere for another one’ Other toys: Class 5 racing land yacht Two smaller ones ‘for the kids’ A big three-seater 31' gaff-rigged shallow-draft timber schooner 14' wooden dinghy 16' fibreglass canoe 16' keel boat An inflatable and a couple of kayaks

I

n the days before Sunday trading, when shopping centre car parks were deserted, there existed all kinds of opportunities for lads like Paul and his gang of fellow 15year-olds when they needed a test track for

the new toys they’d knocked up together in their dads’ sheds. Paul had seen a land sailing club in action and had studied their videos, drawing up plans from what he saw. Next he got some 13

Photo courtesy of Susan and Paul Day

aluminium tubing, bolted a frame onto some trolley wheels and threw up some old sailcloth, creating something akin to a wind-powered billycart. It ‘went like the clappers’, and after the first sail none of his mates would get back on his new ‘yacht’. Paul, however, has been going like the clappers ever since, in streamlined land yachts like his record-breaking Vindicator. Thankfully, he avoids car parks in favour of rock-hard salt lakes. Although land sailing is an extreme sport, when you’re actually moving it’s more like watching telly than most other ‘out there’ 14  Big Boys’ Toys

sports. Paul says, ‘You steer these things with your feet across a bar, and only about an inch of movement is enough to do a 180° turn. For the duration you’re dead still, no body movement, just listening to the wind and concentrating on all the conditions around you. You can get very unfit doing this sport.’ When Paul went to work at the mines near Kalgoorlie in 1981, he paid a visit to the well-known Lake Lefroy Land Sailing Club. ‘I’d been sailing little six-footers up to that point, and a bloke called John Madden put me in this monstrous wooden 20-footer and the sheer speed of it scared the living shit out of me!’ When the mining downturn hit in the late eighties, Paul was forced to move on: ‘Everyone left town, all the yachts were just lying around and I was the only member left. So I went travelling and competed in the World Championships in Lytham St Annes in England, and didn’t come back until 1991.’ Returning held a surprise for Paul. He had said to himself that he would never go

back to the club as it would be too sad, but, he says, ‘there were all these guys playing with all the old stuff we’d left out there years before; it was unreal, and to top it off a bloke offered me a really good job on the spot’. Paul had to go out on the lake every day in a quad bike exploring for minerals. This was a bonus for his sailing—‘I kept a log of all the weather conditions and what it did to the salt, invaluable information that no-one had collected at the time.’ It was also a time in which Paul did a lot of experimentation with different designs, and over the next few years he built about 15 yachts. In 1993 Paul and his wife, Susan, and friends John and Mary Nobbs, organised what they called the Intra-Pacific Land Yacht Championship. ‘We got 65 entries from all over the world . . . it was huge.’ But it was also raining. ‘On the second day the lake was half full of water and this big northerly hit and the only yacht to keep going was Vindicator, which was designed and built by my mate

Bill Finch, and it clocked 144 kph, equal to the world speed record at the time,’ Paul says proudly. (Vindicator stills holds the Australian record.) In 2003 Bill decided he’d had enough of chasing records and rang Paul to tell him that if he wanted Vindicator he had to come and get it. It meant a trip across the Nullarbor, but Paul was overwhelmed at the thought of owning an Australian land sailing legend. Paul’s highest recorded speed on Vindicator is 124.4 kph, but he feels he’s been faster on some earlier runs. He’s all fired up because there’s a racer from England who reckons he’s going to have a tilt at the record. In recent trials Paul has been able to keep pace with him. You’d imagine with all his local knowledge and Vindicator’s proven design, that Paul will soon have his day. ‘Next spring we’re just going to camp out here on the lake until we catch the perfect conditions,’ he says with the supreme confidence of someone who knows the answer is just blowing in the wind. Winning isn’t everything  15

Top Fuel Sandwich Drag racing with Stan and the gang Big boy: Stan Toy: Dragster Description: Top Fuel drag racer Builder: Sainty Engineering Power: 7000–8000 hp Top speed: About 532 kph (4.5 seconds for the quarter-mile) Weight: 1 tonne Size: Regulations limit size to 300" wheel base, or 7.62 m

Date in service/first run: 2003 Value: ‘If you count the rig, tools and spare engines there’d be no change from a mill’ First toy: Meccano Other toys: One other dragster ‘The big B-Double yellow rig’ ‘A workshop full of amazing hi-tech engineering machines’

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nyone’s who’s ever stood in the narrow safety zone between two dragsters about to take off will know what it’s like to be treated to a ‘top fuel sandwich’. As the engines idle menacingly, you know your earplugs are going to be sorely tested—you’re stuck between two growling beasts, sandwiched. A sudden bone-parting roar goes

right through you as the green flashes in your face and the drivers take off, releasing more than 7000 horses each, and burning more fuel per second than a jumbo jet; the assault on your senses measure 150 decibels and 2.2 on the Richter scale. Gene Simmons from the rock band KISS, who’s a committed drag racer, reckons there’s nothing louder, and I guess 17

18  Big Boys’ Toys

he’d know. For Stan, it’s a sound as familiar and unthreatening as a whistling kettle. Stan and his family are legends of the track, and their yellow chrome moly (molybdenum) nitro-methane-fuelled machine can flash along a quarter-mile race track in close to four seconds, a veritable rocket on wheels. Drag racing is an impressive spectacle from any vantage point, and a big night at the track is theatrical in the extreme. Essentially, drag racing is an acceleration contest between two racers from a standing start, usually over a quarter mile. An event is a series of individual two-car tournamentstyle eliminations based on the fastest times achieved. There’s a variety of classes categorised by things like engine size, weight and type of fuel. ‘Top fuel’ racers are the fastest cars on the planet, and like all thoroughbreds they are also the most temperamental. Exploding engines, fires and blowouts are not uncommon and simply add to the excitement of the event.

Above: 'Top' fuelling up Opposite: Terry in the hot seat unleashing the horses Photo courtesy of Badger Photography

Winning isn’t everything  19

What goes on between races is equally impressive. Stan is in his element working on the engines that have made him famous. No sooner is a race over than the dragster is rolled back to the giant yellow B-Double rig, which is home away from home for Stan’s team, as well as store, office and workshop. Here the engine is rebuilt from the block up in a bit over an hour, ready for the next burst of adrenalin and nitro. Computer readouts are analysed, everything is checked and the precious fuel is gently poured into the tank like some elixir of the gods. Everyone gets their hands dirty at this point—Stan, son Terry, brother Norm, wife Marg and myriad team members who are busy discussing the minute details of the sprint and how it can be improved, while piecing together what ends up being an almost brand-new engine. Oh, and if one of those is needed, there are two standing by the door of the trailer ready to go. Stan is not one to blow his own trumpet, even in such a noisy pursuit, but talk to 20  Big Boys’ Toys

anyone else around and you’ll hear him referred to with awe.Tony Beuk from Western Sydney International Dragway says, ‘What he does in his modest workshop in western Sydney matches anything from overseas. The sport is dominated by the Yanks, but Stan’s reputation and engineering is ranked with the best. He built the first non-American car to run the four seconds for the quarter mile.’ Another legend of Australian drag racing, Jim Read, was overheard telling some inquisitive American drivers, ‘Yeah, Stan’s extraordinary, makes everything himself, even made the driver!’ (his son Terry). Terry explains that the driving is intense: ‘There’s an invisible line—if you go near that line, it’ll hurt you; if you go over it, it’ll kill you.’ He then lightens up, adding, ‘The best part is the barbecue at the end of the meet.’ His father originally raced drag boats, and still holds the world’s waterski speed record of 143.08 mph. ‘It was too dangerous for me,’ says Terry, ‘so we experimented with a drag

boat engine in a dragster and went from there.’ Grandad Reg (now 85), who was into racing speedway in the late 1950s, is still active in the workshop and is understandably proud of his clan. Stan’s brother Norm, along with long-time friend Denis, does most of the designing of components and works closely with Stan on the constant challenge of improving the performance of their racers. Even Terry’s kids are on deck as apprentice drag racers, ensuring the continuity of the family speed machine gene. Stan delights in the fact that they can do what they do for about a quarter of the cost of the imports. ‘If we need something we simply make it. I think we’re the only people in the world who make their own rod bolts and race with them.’ When asked

Three generations: Stan, brother Norm, son Terry and grandad Reg

what’s next, he says, ‘My aim is to have ten engines standing by, six for the racing and another four left over.’ The others all laugh nervously, knowing full well that he actually means it.

Winning isn’t everything  21

I Feel the Need… Jet boat racing with Brooke Big boy: Brooke Toy: Our Toy Description: 350 restricted class jet boat Built by: Brooke and the boys from Stingray Boats Power: 400–440 hp, ‘engine is a 350 Chev’ Top speed: 115 kph, ‘gets there in about 2½–3 seconds’ Weight: 605 kg ready to race Size: 13'6"

Date in service/first run: 2006 Value: ‘To build from scratch if you were paying for everything, $40–$45,000’ First toy: ‘Dinky pedal car, billycarts we’d made ourselves’ Other toys: ‘No, don’t have time to use ’em anymore—over cars, had motorbikes but they hurt too much, ski boat sat in the shed for a year unused’

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hether you’ve jumped out of planes, been dragged onto the scariest theme park rides by your kids or sat in a car with an over-confident L-plater, nothing could prepare you for your first ride in a jet boat. It’s hair-raising, adrenaline pumping and gut wrenching—all at once. As Brooke says, ‘It’s a bit like having a shot of heroin—once you’ve had one that’s it, you’re gone.’ Opposite: Brooke and Kim with their toy

Brooke, who’s a mechanic, has always been into engines and speed. He’s had cars, bikes, ski boats—and now jet boats are his addiction. He explains, ‘I got conned into it a bit at the start. I had a fella who was a customer at the workshop who was getting a boat, and he asked me if I’d build him an engine and go navigating with him. (All jet boats race with a driver and navigator.) I did two race meets with him—the first race meet he rolled it, 23

the next race meet I navigated for him and after that I started to drive it—that was in 2000, and I was goneski.’ A jetsprint course is a purpose-built water maze, roughly the size of a footy field, with shallow canals about a metre deep and four to eight metres across. It’s designed to challenge driving skills, with multiple bends and straights over about 1.5 km and from the air it looks like some kind of bizarre fish farm. The aim is to make it around the track in the fastest time, and in one piece. The speed at which the drivers negotiate what is essentially a series of around 25 very close-together 180° bends, pulling 5–6 Gs, is hair-raising. Flipping is reasonably common, but there are few injuries as the crew are strapped in with five-point harnesses, helmets and neck braces. The boats are made from a lightweight aluminium—people have said it’s like putting a drag racer engine in a dinghy—so the power-to-weight ratio is unlike that of any 24  Big Boys’ Toys

Winning isn’t everything  25

other motor sport. Steering is through a rear nozzle which directs the jet unit output. There is no rudder and the boat can only steer when power is applied. The jet units have a water throughput of up to 28,000 litres (the size of an average swimming pool) per minute, which makes them incredibly manoeuvrable. Unlike many of the other toys in this book, Brooke’s boat Our Toy was quick to build—only eight days. When he’s into something he’s clearly a motivated individual! ‘We’d come back from a race meeting, we’d blown the motor up in the one we’d had, the other one was sitting there in pieces, so we decided that we’d put it back together and get it ready to race and it just went from there—the three of us (Brooke, his wife Kim and good buddy Adam) spent a lot of the next eight days getting it done. Sleep when you’re dead, I reckon.’Their pride and joy was named Our Toy as someone had already taken the name Boys Toy. Besides, as it was a joint effort, Our Toy was a happy compromise. 26  Big Boys’ Toys

Unlike many other speed machines, jet boats also require very little maintenance. Brooke says, ‘Once you’ve built the boat you just need to freshen up the engine and maybe build your blades up once a year, but it’s not like you’ve got tyres or breaks or shocks to worry about.’ He reckons the biggest expense is travelling to the meetings, which are held in places as far flung as Melton (in Victoria) and Maryborough (in Queensland). The easy care aspect leaves a lot more time for the racing, and socialising. At the end of the day it’s a very social sport—Brooke and Kim are active members of their local jet sprint club and they travel with the club all over the east coast attending meets. There’s about 65 registered boats in Australia and at each race meeting they get somewhere between 40 and 50 crews who turn up. The bottom line for Brooke, however, is the speed thing, and the desire to win: ‘It’s 40 to 50 seconds of just very, very intense action, a lot is happening really quickly and

you have to make decisions on the hop. It’s a total buzz, a very intense buzz.’ He then elaborates on the technique: ‘The thing is you’ve got to relax—you can’t make the boat go any faster, you’ve just gotta go smoother, ’cause the smoother you are the more your speed can stay consistent.’ Brooke is clearly a cool customer, keeping calm under pressure. There are 25 boats in his class, ‘so you know who the competitors are. At the moment there’s one bloke that always beats me and one bloke and my wife

just behind me, so you can’t fall over or they’ll get you and you have to keep trying to beat the other bloke. If the other guy wasn’t in it I wouldn’t still be racing. It’s only the drive to catch him that keeps me going’. Brooke reckons he might hand over driving to Kim completely soon—after all, she also finished in the Top Ten in the 2007 Australian Championship points round. If Brooke does take his pedal off the metal though, you can’t help wondering what will be the next fix that ‘floats his boat’.

Winning isn’t everything  27

A Beastly Ride Aaron’s ‘truck buggy’, the Azteck Truggy Big boy: Aaron Toy: Azteck Truggy, AKA The Beast Description: ‘Truggy—Out-Right class, Off Road Racer’ Key info: Gen 3 V8 Holden motor, 5.7 turbo 400 anto gearbox, 9" diff Built by: Aaron and his mate Nick Power: 450 hp Top speed: 220 kph Weight: 2 tons

Size: 2.2 m First run: 2004 Value: ‘$35,000 plus labour to build, so worth about $60–$70,000’ First toy: ‘Small plywood pedal car with a roof, steering wheel and hand brake that Granddad Stanley built for me. Crashed it going down the drive one day so rebuilt it, with modifications, and continued my stunt work’ Other toys: ‘No other toys unfortunately . . . not allowed!’

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ou can imagine the wave of admiration that will sweep over ‘boys’ around the land when they read about Penny: when she was just out of her teens she mustered all the savings she had and bought her boyfriend, Aaron, his first racing buggy for his 21st birthday. Not only thoughtful and generous, but brave as well, because Aaron’s dad, a national circuit

racing champion, wouldn’t let him get a racer, knowing how much cash the sport consumed. Aaron had actually saved enough money himself as he had been dreaming of racing buggies all his life, and was feeling pretty low about being ‘knobbled’ by his family. Happily, Penny surprised one and all with the ultimate petrolhead present and Aaron was off. ‘I paid her back,’ 29

says Aaron. ‘But she loves the racing so she wanted to see me go for it.’ Offroad racing has been booming in recent years, inspired by its huge popularity in America. A sport loaded with challenges, it features a number of classes of racers, with the Pro (or Out-Right) class referring to 3.5 to 6 litre cars. It’s a test of driver and machine in often extremely taxing conditions. ‘The real tests are the big meets in the bush, where we might race over a 90 km course, that we’re only allowed to look at once, in the four-wheel drive,’ explains Aaron. ‘If you don’t get an early qualifying start you end up eating the dust of 50 or 60 other cars which are only separated by a minute or so.’ Aaron won his first state championship in 2001. Over the years he’s had a number of wins in a variety of vehicles but the real achievement and career highlight was designing and building The Beast (officially named Azteck Truggy), arguably Australia’s first serious Pro class ‘truggy’ (you guessed it, a truck kind of 30  Big Boys’ Toys

buggy). The aim of the game is to do the round in the quickest time, so the design of your car becomes a crucial factor. The Beast was born in Aaron’s shed, based on designs he drew himself modified from American cars. ‘I laid it out in chalk on the garage floor then cut all the tubular framing, put the engine on a box and put a wheel here and a wheel there,’ he explains, making it sound easy. The framing on the racers has to comply with stringent safety standards, so he got his brother-in-law Nick, a welder, to secure it all together. In the end they spent 18 months of evenings and weekends working on it and gradually The Beast emerged. Not surprisingly, Penny and Aaron are still together, and they now have a ten-year-old son, Jeremy. ‘He’s right into it, can’t keep him out of the shed,’ Aaron says, giving him a hug. ‘That’s why it’s bright yellow, it’s his favourite colour.’ When Aaron gets in and starts up the big V8 engine, the garage fills with smoke and noise. The Beast comes to

Photo courtesy of Sunphoto/Sean McTigue

life, inches its nose out of the garage and heads for the great outdoors. Aaron explains that the sport is changing, due to the quality of the cars and the driving skills: ‘The competition’s getting so good these days, quiet daunting actually. The beauty is if you’ve got a little bit of nous in the shed and can drive alright then you’ve still got a chance of beating the guys with the big bucks.’ There’s also a special mateship among competitors. ‘One day at a big meet I was winning and I got a flat tyre. I kept going till the tyre was virtually off the rim and finally had to pull out in the last lap. A mate who was racing against me pulled up and helped me fix the tyre and I was able to get

back in the race and ended up winning. It’s like that all the time—if a bloke breaks down there’ll be ten others he’s racing against there in a flash to get him going again.’ It’s punishing and brutal. At the recent Nationals more than 50 cars started the race, but only 17 finished. He’s had a few spills but The Beast has been good to him and is ready to go for the next big bash in Victoria. ‘People have said to me, “if you won a million dollars would you go and race a V8 Supercar or something?” “Na”, I say, “I’d just build a new one of these”.’ With blokes like Aaron beating the drum, offroad racing can only grow. And for him, a bit of family support makes all the difference. ‘It’d be really hard to do what I do if Penny wasn’t into it too,’ he says, remembering who actually got the ball rolling all those years ago. Penny has the last word, refuting the well-known adage: ‘It’s not a case of if you can’t beat them join them,’ she says with conviction. ‘I just love it.’ Winning isn’t everything  31

When ‘boys’ band together When boys gather together for a common cause, their projects and passions can be like a magnet attracting others to help them move mountains. This is where the big toys get bigger and the boys, en masse, get bolder. And it’s at this point where I must acknowledge (for fear of lynching) that in these projects, many, many women have also worked hard for the common cause and ‘Boys’ becomes something of a generic term!

Connie Toy: Connie ‘Boys’: Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) Description: Lockheed Super Constellation VH-EAG Built by: Lockheed, 1955 for US Air Force Engine: Fuel injected, twin-row, 18-cylinder turbo compound supercharged radial engine Weight: Maximum take-off weight (unleaded fuel) 54,545 kg Height: 7.5 m Wingspan: 37.5 m Length: 35.4 m Top cruising speed: 480 kph Cost: HARS got Connie in exchange for some restoration work they did for the US Air Force Museum. A contract in 1945 saw craft like Connie delivered to the military for around US$700,000 a piece Restoration cost: $2 million cash and sponsorship deals to restore, plus 16,000 man hours Location: Australian Historical Flying Centre, Illawarra Airport

Photo courtesy of HARS

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he dream for this group of aircraft buffs was to see a Super Constellation—the icon of 1950s international air travel, the plane that gave Qantas its wings to the world after World War Two—fly in Australian skies once again. They found one in 1991 in an aircraft boneyard in Tucson, Arizona, which hadn’t flown for decades—derelict and full of bird droppings. Five years of painstaking effort was mounted by teams of blokes who made their way from Australia to toil in the Arizona heat and dust. It was an extraordinary restoration, 16,000 man-hours in all and donations of nearly $2 million in cash and services before the aircraft was finally flown in an epic 38-hour flight across the Pacific to Australia. Now she’s the star turn at air shows and on joy flights across the land, and can be visited at the HARS museum at Illawarra Airport.

James Craig

n 1972 an enthusiastic group of fellows from a small Sydney group known as the Lady Hopetoun and Port Jackson Marine Steam Museum (which eventually became

I

the Sydney Heritage Fleet) decided to refloat one of Australia’s last great sailing ships. The James Craig, built in England in 1874, had lain demasted and rotting in the mud of Recherche Bay in Tasmania since she was abandoned by her owners in 1932. Her hull was patched up and some preliminary repairs were done in Hobart prior to her being towed to Sydney in January 1981. On a purpose-built slave dock the 25-year restoration job continued. Most of her iron hull was replaced, together with a complete reconstruction of her upper deck, masts and rigging and the addition of all the other equipment to make her comply with maritime survey requirements. The original efforts of the few boys who took on the challenge of this mammoth restoration were supported by over a thousand volunteers— men and women who were finally able to realise their dream in 2000 when under full sail she passed out the heads of Sydney Harbour and took to the ocean in a spectacular display from the great age of sail.

34  Big Boys’ Toys

Photo courtesy of Sydney Heritage Fleet

Toy: James Craig, originally named Clan Mcleod ‘Boys’: Sydney Heritage Fleet Built by: Bartram Haswell & Co, Sunderland, England, 1874 Description: Three-masted barque setting 21 sails. Engines: 2 × 400 hp MTU diesel engines driving ZF IRM 350 gearboxes with a reduction ratio of 6:1 Weight: Approx 1500 tonnes loaded displacement—646 tons net Height: 35 m above waterline (higher than the deck of Sydney’s Anzac Bridge, which is 27 m) Length: 70 m from flying jib boom to mizzen boom Top speed: Under sail approximately 12 knots, under power 10 knots Cost: Original cost £11,375 Restoration cost: Approximately $25 million includ­ing donations, gifts in kind and volunteer time Location: Sydney’s Darling Harbour

G42—Garratt locomotive Photo courtesy of Bob Wilson/Puffing Billy

Toy: G42 ‘Boys’: Puffing Billy Preservation Society Built by: Beyer Peacock and Co Ltd, Manchester, England, 1926 Description: Articulated narrow gauge Garrett ‘G’ class steam locomotive Weight: 69 tons Height: 10'8" Length: 51'7" Top speed: 20 mph Power: Tractive effort of 27,600 lb Cost: Bought from Victorian Railways (VR) for $1,000 in 1962, originally cost VR £21,618 Restoration cost: $1.7 million Location: Originally ran on the Moe-Walhalla branch line until 1962, now at Puffing Billy Railway, Belgrave, Victoria

A

‘

rguably one of the Society’s greatest achievements’ is how John Thompson,   President of the Puffing Billy

­ reservation Society, has described the P restoration of the G42. The 1926 Garratt had been a lifeless exhibit at the museum at Menzies Creek, Victoria, since being saved for preservation by the membership back in 1962. Its triumphant return to active service in April 2004 was a widely publicised event which celebrated the huge effort made by the ‘Get G42 Going Committee’. The restoration took 25 years, and involved raising funds for $1.7 million in restoration costs. This commitment has been described by John as ‘almost irrational’ but the end result has been a huge asset for the Society. Only two of these rare locomotives, arguably the most powerful narrow gauge locomotives of their time, had originally been built for VR. The significance of G42’s preservation and the quality of its restoration is equal to any project of its kind in the world. When ‘boys’ band together  35

Two

Out of this world Discovering the more unusual toys around includes some that are so quirky they are positively off the planet. Here’s a collection of boys and their toys which proves you’re only limited by your imagination and that exploring another dimension is always an option for anyone intent on something a little extraterrestrial.

37

UFO—Ultralight Flying Object David and his circular-winged aeroplane Big boy: David Toy: UFO3 10-3581 Description: Low aspect ratio, circular-winged ultralight Power: 50 hp from a Rotax 503 two-stroke engine Top speed: 75–80 knots Weight: 130 kg Size: 4 m diameter, 2 m high Date in service: 2000

Value: ‘Cost less than a thousand to make because I scrounged around for parts. Nine months to make in my spare time, so add that up’ First toy: ‘Meccano set—best toy ever made I think’ Other toys: ‘My philosophy: if it doesn’t fly it’s not really worth having. I don’t need any other toys; I am fortunate in being able to fly many of the boss’s planes’

I

f you ever find yourself out on the black soil plains of north-west NSW, don’t be alarmed if you spot a disc-shaped object swooping around in the sky like some long-lost prop from My Favorite Martian. And you can be assured that the little town of Wee Waa is not some antipodean Roswell—it’s just home to David and his UFO-shaped ultralight. David is interested in the flying dynamics of low aspect ratio planes. Sounds like somePhoto opposite courtesy of Georgia Wall

thing that should be left to NASA, but he’s done the sums, built the models, and is now on his third experimental round-wing aircraft, which he says is his best yet. The aspect ratio (shorter dimension to the longer dimension) in aircraft wing shapes can greatly affect their aerodynamics. Most small planes, like the average Cessna, have aspect ratios of around six or eight, and any less is really not efficient. With low aspect ratio planes your wings get 39

shorter or fatter and the efficiency does indeed go down. But there’s a point at a ratio of about 1.25 where, if you get it right on the peak, not either side but spot on, it works—and that’s what David aims for with these flyers. David’s first circular flyer construction was a rush job to test the concept. It flew OK but it was ‘nose heavy’ so he built number two, which was slightly ‘tail heavy’. He flew it for two years but it wasn’t stable enough. The third one, he reckons, is balanced just right. The shape is the same, but moving the pilot forward slightly has done the trick. The construction’s actually not that technical. David says: ‘It’s more a case of trial and error.’ So far—thankfully—his errors have been minimal! David’s an Adelaide boy and when he was 16 his missionary parents took him to New Guinea. As soon as school finished he landed an apprenticeship with an aviation engineer based in the highlands. He began flying for 40  Big Boys’ Toys

the missions in a role that was a virtual lifeline for these isolated communities. ‘I loved flying for the missionaries, they were so appreciative. I was their school taxi, ambulance, grocery delivery and mailman. If you forgot the mail your name was mud.’ New Guinea became his home—he married there, and kept on flying for 25 years. But eventually David and his wife, Kathy, decided to return to Australia and he took up a job in aircraft maintenance, which is where (as a hobby) he began designing and building his unconventional aircraft. His day job, maintaining aircraft mostly used in agricultural and firefighting work, has allowed him to fly a variety of planes. When asked what he did with the earlier versions of his UFOs, David calmly says that they went to the tip. Before you start worrying about us losing what could be akin to national treasures, remember that he knocks them together out of whatever’s around, in fact of all the toys in this book probably none

are quite so home-spun. David recycles a lot of spares from his work and picks the rest of the material up from the hardware shop. Pine cut into 3 mm strips and glued together is all that’s needed for strong and flexible spars. The shape aids its strength, and it’s all very light. He uses a roll of Seconite fabric to clad it and a coat of ‘sealing dope’, then a couple of coats of eye-catching red paint finish up the bizarre external shape. The propeller takes a bit of time to carve but he uses a relatively light timber—meranti—because when it breaks it doesn’t shatter and destroy the engine as some other timbers do. (This happened to him once on takeoff from a muddy strip, and he’s on prop number 13 at the moment!) With a Rotax two-stroke engine installed, a seat, wheels and a few instruments, it’s up, up and away and off to the next air show. So does David ever get any reported UFO sightings after he’s been flying around? ‘A few in the early days,’ he says. ‘But now most everyone knows me round here.’ However, ‘This

Photo courtesy of Georgia Wall

thing always draws a crowd when you land,’ he says. ‘And then I drop out of the bottom, which is the only way out, and that always causes a bit of a stir.’ David’s not really the type to dress up in Martian gear, but it would be worth seeing. The way he describes his entrance to air shows, it would be just the thing to have the UFO hunters scrambling for their cameras: you’d hear somebody from the crowd call out ‘look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane . . .’, then someone in the know would reply ‘no, it’s just David in his home-made UFO’. Out of this world  41

The Space Cadet Breaking the sound barrier with Blake Big boy: Blake Toy: Hobby rocket Description: AMRAAM 4 (Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile) ½ scale rocket Built by: Public Missiles Ltd—kit assembled and strengthened by Blake Engine: Motors from H180–L1300 total impulse Power: 618.04 hp Top speed: ‘The largest motor can have up to 2,675 Newton seconds of thrust and can travel from 0 to 1599.24 kph in 1.663 seconds at Mach 1.3, breaking the sound barrier in 1.106 seconds’

Weight: 2.2 kg Size: 10 cm diameter Date in service/first run: 1994 Value: $450 rocket + $35–$250 per motor + $150 electronics First toy: ‘Plastic model of an F/A-18 Super Hornet (still sitting in my cupboard), later followed by a Space Shuttle Discovery model’ Other toys: ‘Basically if it has a remote control it’s probably in the shed—helicopters, planes, trucks, cars—you name it’

B

lake’s dad, Petar, affectionately referred to as ‘the mad scientist’ by his kids, is a retired high school science teacher and has been a space nut all his life. Petar’s passions invaded the house from Blake’s earliest memories.

‘He did a lot of experiments at home,’ says Blake. Their home looks pretty much intact but the framed certificates from NASA, photos of space shuttles, Petar shaking hands with astronauts and various iconic moon shots indicate there’s more to this house than first 43

Photo courtesy of Blake Nikolic

meets the eye. Opening the shed door to reveal a pile of rocket shapes, radio-controlled aircraft and piles and piles of electronic gadgetry gives further indication—these are some seriously ‘off the planet’ boys. 44  Big Boys’ Toys

‘The first time you ever do it is the best,’ says Blake.‘I was 10 or 11 at my first firing—it’s such a buzz, the sound has your heart pounding.’ And he’s right. The thrust and the roar as the rocket’s engine battles gravity puts goose bumps up the back of your neck. Blake and his mates have brought Cape Canaveral to a paddock outside Brisbane where almost every month they test their latest toys. ‘This is the real deal,’ says Blake. ‘There’s the satisfaction of knowing that when it all works you can relate it back to what NASA is doing, only on a smaller scale.’ How can he legally do this kind of thing in such a security-crazed world? Blake answers: ‘You have to have CASA approvals and ­insurance, all the safety precautions, clearances and timings. We also follow the international rules of Tripoli, a big American rocketry association. We’re limited with where the rockets can go, as we’re not allowed to put a guidance system in them as that would effectively turn them into missiles.’

And what about explosions? ‘The rockets are usually powered by motors that come from the States and are UN-approved so explosions are very uncommon,’ he says. ‘The real challenge with these things is to get all the variables right so they don’t end up as a dirty big “lawn dart”. A rocket coming down from 10,000 feet at 9.8 metres per second squared can put a decent-sized hole in a car.’ Blake has a do-it-on-the-cheap attitude. ‘I get a real kick out of building my own electronics; deployment systems, accelerometers, altimeters and taking care of all the details, especially making sure the centre of gravity is ahead of your centre of pressure.’ The website for Blake’s rocketry society has been counting down to the next launch date for the last month, and here it is—sun shining, still conditions and a gang of around 50 or so on hand with picnic tables, sunshades and barrier tape in place. All the rockets are lined up like a row of

dangerous-looking fireworks on steroids. The smallest, the size of a large church candle, and the largest, which at this particular launch is Blake’s—a 2-metre, quarter-scale AMRAAM missile—are all ready to go. The sense of anticipation gives way to a flurry of activity as motors are loaded, fuses are set and the rocket is carefully mounted on the vertical rails ready for launch: 5–4–3–2–1–blast off! Blake’s attentions, however, are focused on the on-board computer he’s attached, which acts as a kind of simplified black box recorder. Getting the rocket back to earth in one piece and being able to confirm it did what was planned is the aim. With rockets you’re firmly on the ground, but Blake’s now testing new horizons. He’s always wanted to fly and he’s pretty excited by what’s ahead, as he’s just joined the Australian Defence Force as a trainee helicopter pilot. Aiming high (literally) has allowed Blake’s dream and passion for flight to really take off. Out of this world  45

The First Flight Club Eric and Keith’s replica Wright Flyer Big boys: Eric (son) and Keith (father) Toy: Model A Wright Flyer Key info: 1959 Hillman Imp Coventry Climax engine Power: 50 hp—‘The Wrights originally had 35’ Top speed: Cruising speed 42 knots (stall speed 22 knots) Weight: 1300 lb Size: 42'6" wingspan Date in service: First powered flight was 17 December 1903 Current models first flight 27 September 2005

Value: ‘In real cash and time it would have cost $250,000 to build. A bloke from the states offered me 4 mill for it—but it’s not going anywhere’ First toy: Eric—‘Airfix model kits—got one from Dad every Christmas, still got them all’ Keith—‘Pedal car if I remember rightly!’ Other toys: Eric—‘A Gibson SG Custom (Kalamazoo) made in the US in 1968—played it last night at the RSL’ Keith—‘I am a photographic judge at the Royal Easter Show and love my cameras, especially my old folding 1950 Kodak and an early clockwork movie camera’

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ne Christmas, not so long ago, Keith pulled a book out of his collection for his son, Eric, to read called Kill Devil Hill by Harry Combs. It’s the story of the Wright Brothers and their invention of the first powered aeroplane. ‘Sometime later,’ Keith says, ‘Eric rang up and said “I think

we should build a Wright Flyer”. I said, “No way, not me”. I had a fair idea what was involved, you see, but he pestered me and pestered me. Finally I said, “Alright”.’ That was ten years ago, and the amazing Model A Flyer they built together has been flying on and off for the last two years. Even Eric now 47

says, ‘Honestly if I’d known what was involved when I started I don’t think I’d’ve taken it on—five years of research, two years full-time building it, and an awful lot of money.’ Between them these ‘boys’ have more than a century of experience in aviation. Keith has won the Ryan Medal for achievements in gliding, served in the RAAF in World War Two and can trace his passion back to when his dad shouted him a ride in the famous Southern Cross at Mascot in 1932. Eric has been around planes all his life and is a walking encyclopedia on the history of flight. Initially, Eric had to source the plans for the Model A, which proved difficult. ‘I eventually discovered Wilbur Wright’s original handdrawn plans tucked away in the archives of the famous Short Brothers, the world’s oldest aircraft manufacturing firm, now operating in Belfast. They built six planes for the Wright Brothers in England in 1909.’ Then there was the problem of approvals, so Eric simply said to CASA, ‘You tell us 48  Big Boys’ Toys

what we have to comply with and we will.’ They built a model out of tin plate with a 2-foot 6-inch wingspan and tested it in the wind tunnel at Sydney University, then built an 8-foot wingspan radio-controlled model before the actual construction could begin. Building the Model A was an involved process. ‘It’s really a two-man job,’ says Keith. ‘I’d measure something and Eric would check it and vice versa.’ The Wrights built their own engine and were the first in the world to do a cast aluminium block. Bill Whitney, the consulting engineer on this project, suggested a Hillman Imp engine, which they ended up using with great success. The NSW Department of Transport gave them a grant, which helped with things like the $16,500 worth of rare Sitka spruce timber they had to buy for the frame. A bloke called Dick Sweetapple built the propellers out of mountain ash and western red cedar at a much cheaper rate than he normally would—just to be a part of the project.

Col Pay donated all the turnbuckles and gave them a lot of help, as did so many others. Keith’s wife, Jean, who has since passed away, volunteered for an important job. Eric explains: ‘The Wrights originally covered their wings with linen coated with shellac. The fabric we used is a polyester silicone product called AirX 900 which Mum sewed up for us—all 7862 stitches. She said to us, “Well if I can make a bride dress I can do this, as long as you guys tell me what to do”, and it’s probably the only time she did what she was told!’ Astronaut Buzz Aldrin was invited to Narromine to dedicate the Flyer at the Air Show in 2005, so it was all hands on deck to get it ready. On 27 September 2005, during a test flight with Col Pay as test pilot, the new/old bird flew over the aerodrome and around in a big loop at about ten metres off the ground and nearly 40 kph. ‘I was doing cartwheels,’ says Eric. The plane was authentic in every respect, even down to how she

Eric and Keith's replica Wright Flyer on the tarmac at Narromine

handled, which according to Eric is like trying to fly a washing machine. When she flew on her official inauguration, Buzz Aldrin was all too keen to use the history of the occasion to look forward (after all, he has walked on the moon). He said proudly, ‘This is indeed a momentous occasion to support the great freedoms that we’ve been given as human beings, so I dedicate this occasion to the next hundred years of powered flight and the freedom that will bring to every human being on earth.’ Out of this world  49

Homage to the Wright Brothers

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he American brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright are generally credited with inventing and building the first successful aeroplane, Flyer 1, also known as Kitty Hawk, which they flew on 17 December 1903. Although others had made experimental aircraft before, the Wright Brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made mechanical fixed-wing flight possible, as well as correct cord (curvature) of wing, movement of centre of pressure, three axis control (pitch, roll and yawl) and elimination of stall. Within a couple of years they developed it into the first practical aircraft. Manufacturing of the Model A began in 1905 and continued until 1910. Twenty-nine were built worldwide. They could fly for two and a half hours and on their best day they got to almost 10  500 feet. The Wright Brothers began building their Model B for the military in 1911 and later the Model C, but by this time the company was mired in legal battles over patents and Wilbur died of typhoid in 1912. Orville finally sold the company in 1916, living out his days as a very wealthy inventor until his death in 1948.

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First flight of the original Wright Flyer, 17 December 1903, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina Photo from Wikipedia Commons

Out of this world  51

Retro Reincarnation Allan’s Cadillac hearse, Elvira Big boy: Allan Toy: Elvira Description: 1967 Cadillac Superior Limousine-style hearse converted to a limo Engine: 429 cu" Power: 340 hp Top speed: About 100 mph Weight: 2.7 tonnes Size: 6.4 m Date in service: 1967 Value: $50–$60,000

First toy: ‘My dad travelled to Japan when I was really young and brought back a transistor radio, still got it.’ Other toys: Morticia—1962 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Landau-style hearse/ambulance combination converted to a limo Miss Sabrina—1976 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Landaustyle hearse converted to a limo 1955 Seeburg V200 jukebox, Elvis and other 50s memorabilia ‘A turtle resort farm in the backyard, with about 40 turtles living in luxury in purpose-built landscaped ponds’

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with him in Elvira, as he calls her, is a blast because heads really turn and, as soon as people take in the fact that passengers are partying on in the back, the comments come thick and fast. Filling up at the servo is a must-do for anyone who has the opportunity to cruise with Allan and Elvira, as even though

eople seem to really take notice of a passing hearse, especially if it’s a classic Cadillac done up like a Christmas tree. Hearses are not really supposed to be fun, but in the hands of a passionate enthusiast like Allan this traditionally sombre bus becomes something festive. Driving around 53

you’re reclining inside a hearse people are compelled to smile and laugh. Any hearse can have an after-life like this—all it takes is a devotee like Allan to remodel the interiors so that latter-day living passengers can appreciate the paradox of riding in a machine that has really been ‘born again’. Allan bought Elvira from a dealer in Queensland eight years ago. The dealer had imported her from the US, where she worked

Opening the door on Alan’s retro room

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for the same funeral company for 30 years, doing over 10,000 funerals in that time. Allan has collected three hearses—an extension on having a collection of old Holdens, he reckons. He soon found that the fun side of taking people for a ghost tour could also be profitable, and so his toys also now pay their way. ‘The business was really an afterthought,’ he says. ‘A mate of mine in Queensland owned a Cadillac hearse converted with seating, and he was pestered by people to take them to functions and when he did it he really enjoyed himself, so I thought I’d give it a go myself.’ Most of the people who ride with Allan get off on the fact that other people stare at them. ‘You’re very visible inside the hearse, especially at night with the inside lights on,’ he explains. ‘Unlike a conventional limo with the dark-tinted windows, you’re on show and lots of people love that.’ He lists some of the current uses of his hearses—weddings, birthdays, school formals—but also describes some

more bizarre requests. ‘One time I was asked to attend a protest for a new tunnel project in the city and we wrote “RIP CLEAN AIR” down the side of her, which got big cheers from the crowd as we drove along. I’ve also had the odd call from sex workers who are looking for alternate locations!’ Allan insists he’s not into the death scene—‘my hearses have been “pimped out” rather than ghouled up’. It’s easy to see what he’s talking about with the interiors looking like some elegant retro bordello. The space in the back is a veritable lounge room with either red velvet, snow leopard or royal blue upholstery, mood lighting, and flowers in little window-post vases. The interiors can be anything Allan wants them to be, but what attracted him to hearses in the first place was the external look of the things. ‘I like the

flowing lines,’ he says, ‘and the shape—they’re just like big sculptures.’ Apparently the hearse owners around town all know each other; they get together at car shows like Motorfest, GM Day and All American Day. One would imagine a procession of them would attract a fair bit of interest—certainly it does when Allan pulls up in Elvira outside a local café. ‘Is it haunted?’ someone asks—a fair question considering its previous incarnation. Allan responds, ‘Yes, of course it is. Have a seat in the back and see for yourself.’ (Allan says lots of psychics have confirmed this.) Surprisingly, no-one wants to take up the offer. Finally, Allan waves goodbye and does an impressive U-turn, laying some rubber and burning off down the road—loud enough to raise the dead.

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In the Stars John’s personal mountain top observatory Big boy: John Toy: Observatory Key info: Main telescope—10" Takahashi Astrograph f3.4 Power: Up to 500 times magnification, depending on the eyepiece or about 17 times magnification for a good photo. Speed (shutter): ‘About 15 minutes for a good galaxy, or half an hour for something like a nebula’ Weight: 30 kg Size: 850 mm focal length, ‘about a metre all up’ Date in service: 2002 Value: $50,000 First toy: ‘A small three-wheeler bike. My mother tells me that when I got it I would ride up and down the back

lane calling out “aren’t I lucky, aren’t I lucky”. I still have the bike sitting in the garden here in Mudgee’ Other toys: Dobsonian 16" reflector Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain 11" Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain 8" Orion 80 mm refractor Celestron 100 mm refractor Another Takahashi 60 mm refractor Orion 90 mm refractor ‘Heaps of binoculars, cameras, filters, memorabilia, models of the planets, telescopes, a pretty big library and my original Tasco 60 mm refractor’

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um has tucked you in, the lights are off, and you’re staring out your bedroom window at a clear, starry night sky. The Southern Cross is right there, but you can’t for the life of you figure out

why this most famous of star groupings will be in a different position when Mum switches off the light at the same time a month later. How can the night sky change like that? What’s up there? This is how John remembers 57

his earliest fascination with the night sky, but it was a mate who showed him the full moon through his home-made telescope that launched John’s interest on a trajectory that now has him exploring the stars using his own observatory. John’s focus is on comets—rare, never the same, and tantalisingly frequent enough to keep your telescope trained on the edge of the solar system in the hope that one day you’ll put your name to an undiscovered flying ice ball. This is exactly what Robert McNaught, a professional astronomer from Siding Spring Observatory, did in August 2006. When the spectacular Comet McNaught lit up the world’s evening and morning skies for a precious couple of months, John, the amateur enthusiast, was beside himself with excitement. As the comet grew and began shedding its enormous tails nearer the sun, mates from the ‘big smoke’ descended on his isolated bush observatory to share this rare event (about once every 60 years) with John 58  Big Boys’ Toys

and capture the moment on film. ‘We couldn’t believe our luck,’ he said of the comet’s display. ‘By far the best one I’ve ever seen. You do get a good comet every ten years or so, but McNaught was exceptional and I’m not likely to see another as good as that.’ John, a retired NRMA road service mechanic, has poured a fair chunk of his life savings into his collection of high-tech telescopes and the domes and sheds to accommodate them. He’s had telescopes ever since his first little 60 mm Tasco refractor, but ‘bigger is better’ so he’s been expanding his collection ever since. In 1993 the family bought a 25-acre bush block near Mudgee in central NSW, on high ground and far from any annoying city lights, and soon after John was pouring the slab for his mountain observatory. According to John, the new dome was a bugger of a thing to build. ‘For a start nothing’s square and there are so many little tiny things to do—the wheels that allow the dome to revolve, the pulley system that opens the sky

John with 'Tweetie' his homemade Dobsonian 16" reflector

slot, and the curved frame. You have to make it all because you can’t buy it anywhere.’ He says he used nearly 3000 rivets in each one. John has eight telescopes of various shapes, sizes and magnifications, but the pride of the fleet has to be his 10-inch Takahashi Astrograph f3.4. ‘Being really fast for photography, it’s the telescope I usually use to get all the good shots,’ he says as he throws back the shroud on his hi-tech toy, revealing the complex nature of all the mounts and settings. Every year on the first new moon after Easter, John holds a ‘Star Party’ where fellow enthusiasts from his beloved Sutherland

Astronomical Society come and watch the stars. Sometimes an exciting discovery is made. ‘My mate Steve Lee, who is the manager at Siding Spring was searching around in the sky with the big Dobsonian and saw something that shouldn’t be there. Everyone got pretty excited. We rang a mate in Tamworth to train his telescope on the same spot and check it out. When he rang back to confirm our discovery we were all beside ourselves. There were a couple of stars close by for reference and you could really see this thing moving. I tell you we had a big night that night.’ The discovery was later registered by the International Astronomical Union in America and was called Comet Lee. John says that he always has half an eye out for any objects that shouldn’t be there when he’s out stargazing—always searching the skies, just like that little boy gazing at the Southern Cross. With any luck we’ll hear the news one day of a great new comet, named after John, blazing across the sky. Out of this world  59

Let’s Go Fly a Flyke Andrew and Eddie’s flying tricycles Big boys: Andrew and Eddie Toy: Flyke Description: Three-wheeled, powered paraglider Engine: Simonini two-stroke 200 cc purpose-built paramotor Power: 23 hp Top speed: On the ground 80 kph, in the air 60 kph Weight: ‘70 kg without a bloke (so about 150 fully loaded)’ Size: Wing 23 m2, 12 m across, trike 1.5 m long

Date in service: Andrew’s 2002, Eddie’s 2007 Value: $20,000 with wing motor and Flyke First toy: Andrew—‘Plastic train set. I know I loved it because Dad videoed me getting it.’ Eddie—‘French pedal car, three-wheeler, in fact the kind that had cranks that you had to pull to get you moving’ Other toys: Andrew—‘Any number of paragliders’ Eddie—‘30’ yacht’ ‘And we share a hang glider’

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A Flyke is, as it sounds, a kind of flying bike, well, trike actually. Take a recumbent pedal powered 14-speed trike, attach it to a purposebuilt paramotor engine (a powerful two-stoke that drives a 1.2 metre diameter propeller) and hang the whole contraption from the latest hi-tech multi-celled paragliding wing and— voila!—you’ve got yourself a Flyke, the latest

ndrew and Eddie of Mullumbimby on the NSW north coast, were the first   Australians to possess a Flyke. They reckon they will be the new flying craze, and not only do they both have one of these rare toys, but they’ve pushed the boundaries of what they can do by flying arguably as far as the German guy who invented them. Opposite: A flyke in flight

Photo courtesy of Ed Gray

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thing in weight shift aircraft (i.e. where adjustments from the body effect the direction). For those who like to fly at one with the elements, looking like something from ET the Extraterrestrial, then a Flyke might be your toy. Even on the ground, if it’s safe, you can fire up the big fan motor and they tear along. Eddie and Andrew are neighbours and good mates and have been egging on each other in the mutual pursuit of perfect lighter-than-air flight for over 15 years. The Flyke is the latest piece of equipment. Andrew is a paragliding instructor and Eddie has been at it since the early days of hang gliding in the 1970s. When this new contraption appeared, Andrew was onto it like a flash. He had one delivered from the inventor in 2002. It was the first one in Australia. Eddie took to the air for the first time in his Flyke in February 2007. ‘It was so much better than I expected, comfortable and easy to manoeuvre. I was a bit dubious about landing but it just rolled down, smooth as silk.’ He was hooked and, 62  Big Boys’ Toys

Eddie and Andrew with the trike part of their magnificent flying machines

as is the case with so many ‘toys’, began to plan the epic trip. It was Eddie’s idea to fly their Flykes to the big Pico Fly-In at Milbrulong, south-west of Wagga Wagga (only 970 km from Mullumbimby as the crow flies but more like 1500 as the Flyke flies). They hatched a plan that would have them dropping in on various communities along the way to raise funds and awareness for the Cancer Council’s Relay for Life program. It was an epic flight in the world’s lightest and smallest wheeled aircraft (and in a breeze

the Flyke can act more like a leaf than a plane) and one of the longest treks performed to that date in a Flyke. They took off from the big field just behind their street in Mullumbimby on 1 September 2007 with their sights firmly set on arriving 12 days later. All went well until the leg between Manilla and Gunnedah in northern NSW. Andrew takes up the tale: ‘The conditions were strong on the ground and I was flying at about 1000 feet and it was really turbulent. I flew behind some mountains and the turbulence in the rotor pushed me down towards the ground. At one stage I was just looking for anywhere to land, but all my training made me realise this was the worst possible situation to be in. I got through it, only just, and came down in a paddock well away from the airfield and my heart was racing. It was the closest I’d ever come to a near death experience.’ It may have had its dramas, but what really made the trip for them was visiting little

communities along the way to spread the word. ‘That’s the beauty of these things, you can land them in any open spot virtually, so we’d drop in on a local school here and on a farm there.’ Their journey was followed by people on the ground and via a blog, and when it came to the last leg, from Temora to Milbrulong, expectations were high. ‘We were on our last legs, I was almost out of fuel and Eddie’s engine had a real problem.’ The boys limped in, arriving separately, which wasn’t so bad as Andrew was able to arrange a hero’s welcome for Eddie as he cruised in on his dodgy engine. And they still arrived smack on schedule. It seems Andrew and Eddie remain completely undeterred by any problems they had on their epic trek. When asked what they might do with their machines now, they answer on top of each other—‘India’, says Andrew; ‘Following the Darling’, says Eddie. You’d have to ask with boys like Andrew and Eddie—‘Why not both?’ Out of this world  63

When small toys go big In the hands of motivated ‘boys’, small toys can be modelled or multiplied to the point where their mass or complexity ranks in the league of the big toys.

A dam good time Pond battleships Model ships are neat, but when you get whole navies of them on a dam somewhere, all firing shot and doing battle to see whose vessel is the toughest and whose commander is the best tactician, then you have a serious case of small toys going big. Rules of engagement apply, and the tiny ball bearings that are fired from gas-powered guns on the ships’ decks can penetrate the hull of the enemy and cause amazingly life-like sinkings. You just need to make sure you can retrieve your handiwork at the end of the day. Half the fun is building the boats, which can be over a metre in length. With the Photos courtesy of Richard Simpson

cost of the modelling— motors, guns, bilge pumps, steerage, etc—you can easily have a $2,000 tub sitting in the firing line on the lake. There are dozens of battle groups ready to take aim in cities and towns across the land who end up turning their conflicts into an excuse to socialise and play. ‘We

don’t take ourselves too seriously,’ says Bill from the Mudgee Battle Group. ‘If you do, the entire fleet is likely to start firing at you all at once.’

When small toys go big  65

Railroad tycoons Model trains In sheds and homes across Australia, tracks are being laid, new territory is being opened up and empires are being built. Model train sets have been the preferred toy for generations of small and big boys alike since the dawn of the railway age. Occasionally, however, you find a train set that is so extensive it has

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become a big boy’s toy, like Peter’s. His quarter of a kilometre of HO gauge track, 600 items of rolling stock, computer-controlled signalling systems and an elaborate timetable that would be worthy of any great railroad baron. He belongs to the Friendly Modellers Group, a cluster of blokes who’ve been

meeting at each other’s layouts to play trains every second Thursday night since 1964. Around the country there are thousands of members of model railway clubs—and be warned, it’s an addictive thing. That $200 start-up kit may well lead to the construction of highly detailed hand-built brass locomotives complete with built-in sound effects chips that will set you back thousands—and train sets that will quickly expand and consume every bit of available space, turning into mighty big and complex toys just like Peter’s.

Little big battles Toy soldiers It’s always interesting when art imitates life, and for many wargamers the fun of replicating the details of scenes from history or some imaginary world is such a buzz that before you know it the entire shed has been turned over to the Battle of Waterloo or some epic sci-fi encounter. When you start to rewrite history the feeling of power can really go to your head. Sometimes unfolding over weeks of carefully considered moves, games usually begin historically accurate, but are often ‘improved’ by the writing of better orders than those of the generals of yore. A few blokes in John’s group (the Nuna­wading

Wargamers) have not only won national championships, they have also competed successfully at an international level. Groups like John’s (with a 90-strong membership) can be found all over Australia, planning the next great encounter. Vast areas are given over to the construction of scenery, on which thousands of figures are arranged ready for battles. It’s very social, but also competitive, and they’ll all be determining who has the skills of Rembrandt to make the little guys look realistic, as well as who has the mind of Wellington to outsmart everyone else in the shed. Photos courtesy of John Shaw/Nunawading Wargamers Association

When small toys go big  67

Three

Workhorses To be happy and healthy, active and loved is the dream of all retirees, especially if the alternative is the scrap heap. Toys that once worked hard for a living and have found new lives with caring custodians are the lucky ones. So too are the boys who possess one of these rare machines, as their toys not only have a rich heritage but can also turn work into play.

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Heritage Hero Gary’s side-wheel paddle-steamer, Hero Big boy: Gary Toy: Hero Description: Two-cylinder, high-pressure (80 psi) sidewheel paddle-steamer Built by: Messrs McDonnell and Linklater Power: 28 hp Top speed: 12–13 knots Weight: 100 tonnes Size: 95'

Date in service/first run: 1874 in first incarnation, 2007 in current version Value: ‘Millions! Don’t ask!’ First toy: ‘Cyclops pedal car with tray on the back, in which I’d carry loads of dirt for a halfpenny’ Other toys: Putt-putts, dinghies 1912 double-decker 30-seat chain-drive bus 1924 20-seat Vulcan bus

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ack in the 1980s, Gary and his family were on a mission to find an old paddle-steamer in need of restoration. The Christmas holidays in 1986 were set aside to explore the many derelicts dotted along the banks of the Murray in the hope of finding something that might, with a bit of work, end up being a great family plaything. Buried in the mud at Boundary Bend

was a particularly decrepit wreck that had lain partially submerged since it was burnt, almost to the waterline, in 1957—a oncegrand old paddle-steamer known as Hero. ‘There was something about the Hero—her boiler, the counter stern and rudder were really appealing to me,’ says Gary. ‘I don’t know what got into me but I just had to have it.’ 71

Gary’s decision to restore the paddlesteamer was emblematic of the boat's name—it was nothing short of heroic. Twenty years on and all the doubts, heartaches and financial bleeding are history as Gary steams up the river with his beaming crew on one of Hero’s first ‘sea’ trials, each gentle stroke of the engines confirming a sense of pride and satisfaction at a most remarkable salvation. When Gary took his extended family up to see his new purchase in 1986 they were devastated, at least at first. It was covered in snags and mud, and all that was visible was a few ribs sticking up and the rusty dome of the corroded boiler. Even Gary became despondent about the whole thing. But it was the family, especially his brother Billy, who rallied around and got him up again. In spite of regular working bees through the nineties, Hero was still stuck in the mud, but again it was Billy who gave the whole project a nudge. My brother rang and told me to get my arse up to Boundary Bend as 72  Big Boys’ Toys

Gary at the wheel—a restoration job to smile about

he was up there waiting for me. “We’re going to get this boat out”, he said.’ It took six hard working weeks but they finally did it. She was then craned onto a low loader for the run to the Port of Echuca, where the serious restoration work began. Only about a third of the hull was salvageable; from there up it was a total rebuild, including the boiler and engines. Throughout the project Gary had a support network that many boys dream of, led by his totally committed family.

The overriding challenge was to include as many mod cons as possible, blended into an authentic period reconstruction. Shipwright Kevin Hutchinson and his team did most of the timberwork, with the new boiler being constructed by Right Engineering of Melbourne. Gary’s own engineering workshop was swung into action doing most of the metal fabrication; he even found a pair of old rivet guns which proved invaluable in achieving the authentic riveted metal joins. Gary’s son Butch was a deft hand at tossing and driving in the thousands of hot rivets that pepper the main frame below deck. ‘I had to make almost everything from scratch,’ says Gary. ‘From the hundreds of patterns needed for the castings on the new engines to specially turned nuts and bolts. The old imperial-sized metal sections are no longer available so I bought the next size up in metric and then milled them down for authenticity.’ He what?

Gary and family reveal the hull buried in the mud of the Murray Photo courtesy of Gary Byford

Most of the restoration of Hero occurred at the Port of Echuca Photo courtesy of Gary Byford

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The team’s attention to detail has resulted in one of the most stunning transformations of any in the long list of vessels that have been reborn in the riverboat revival of the last few decades. On this trial trip Hero stretches her legs to about 10 knots, and rounding another bend in the river, Kevin sounds a mighty blast on the whistle, enough to wake the ghosts of the original Murray River denizens. ‘She’s the Orient Express of the Murray!’ says Kevin at the wheel, and throws a glance to Gary, whose only response is a grin from ear to ear.

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One of the bedroom suites on the boat

Hero’s first life

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ero’s first trial occurred on 29 October 1874, and the Riverina Herald of the day described her as having the lines of a yacht: ‘it gives her a rakish appearance as she sits on the water . . . the boat is conveniently and handsomely fitted . . . and is intended for the Upper Murrumbidgee trade’. From that time on, the details of the loads she carried provide a snapshot of colonial life and trade. The odd passenger could usually get a berth but her business was consistently rural freight, and with a capacity of 370 tons a load of close to 10,000 bags of wheat was possible. A typical entry in the shipping news reads, ‘Sept. 16 1893, Hero, with Captain Dusling arriving from the Darling with 229 bales of wool from Tarcoola Station’. Trawling the river for trade such as this was pretty much her lot until the fire of 1957 left her remains at the mercy of the elements and the odd souvenir hunter. That is, until Gary became smitten. The Hero in its heyday, with a fully laden barge in tow Photo courtesy of Rusty Boddinar

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Track Gang Ken and George’s section car Big boys: Ken (son) and George (father) Toy: Narrow-gauge section car Description: Fairmont M15-Z42 Built by: Fairmont Motor Company, Minnesota Power: ‘5–8 hp, single-cylinder two-stroke, run by the magneto’ Top speed: ‘30 kph cruising, 60 kph downhill with a tail wind (if you’re feeling crazy and the rules and regs allow)’ Weight: 550 kg Size: 1.5 m

Date in service/first run: 1955 Value: $5000 First toy: Ken—‘N Gauge electric train set’ George—‘Hornby clockwork wind-up train set’ Other toys: Ken—‘11 section cars, from 2' gauge (ex-sugar cane) to 3'6" (ex-QR) and two standard gauge. One exNSWGR Car and one Canadian National Car that we imported’ George—‘An old-style engine shed—sometimes doubles as home!’

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ection cars—quads, trikes, track machines, gangers trolleys, call them what you will—are motorised rail vehicles used to transport tools and workers to and from jobs along the line. They’ve only recently become available to enthusiasts following their demise from regular use on

railway systems around the country, having been replaced for the most part by ‘hy-rails’, trucks with drop-down rail wheels that may well, one day, themselves become toys for those crazy railway boys. Queenslander Ken’s collection of section cars represents many types that have been in 77

use over the years; he’s one of those lucky toy owners who can proudly say ‘I’ve got one for every occasion’. Being rail vehicles their operation is restricted, but Ken and his fellow putt-putt nuts have been persistent in attaining the right accreditation and appropriate permissions to allow them to traverse all manner of lines around the country. Despite Australia’s diabolical rail gauge fiasco, Queensland’s 3'6" narrow gauge also appears in a number of other states, not to mention specially laid narrow-gauge tracks like the one at the Zig Zag Railway in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. All up, Ken and his mates from the Australian Society of Section Car Operators have lots of possibilities for a run. Obviously they’re ever mindful of the timetable for regular traffic, as the humble section car is no match for a speeding freight train! Ken’s father, George, worked for Queensland Railways during the 1950s and 60s, and continued his love affair with trains after 78  Big Boys’ Toys

that, working on various heritage railways in southern Queensland. George, who was a driver in the steam days, is amazed at what’s allowed now: ‘You can’t believe it. In my day on the railways they’d tell you to look out for the gang on these trikes, but I never thought I’d ever be on one of them myself one day. You can’t believe they’d let you do it!’ Ken has grown up infused with his dad’s interests and has also cut his teeth as a railway heritage volunteer. One job that was assigned to him a few years back was the complete restoration of a hand trike for the Zig Zag Railway. His methodical restoration of this emblematic push-me-pull-you machine led him to fixing up other track machines, and finally buying a couple for himself so he could ride the rails without always heading off to a museum line. The machine Ken and George have chosen to play with at the Zig Zag today is a 1955 Fairmont, which according to Ken is a really

A light load for the grand viaducts of the Zig Zag

basic design: ‘Once you’ve got them going it’s really hard to stop them; they’re primitive and simple and robust. It’s the man against machine thing; when you get it timed right it will just go and go, and this is a completely

unique railway that challenges a machine like this.’ Riding on one of these things is mesmerising. You feel connected to the track just like a motorbike rider feeling the road, and there’s Workhorses  79

an enhanced feeling of speed because you’re so low down to the track. Once it’s up to speed, the lack of friction means your motor just putts along at not much more than a lazy 30 kph, scooting you down the track with the wind in your hair, the sound of the steel wheels on the rails, the 360° uninterrupted view, and of course no hands on a steering wheel—all amounting to a truly appealing way to cross the countryside. Up and down the Zig Zag’s steep and winding mountainside track, Ken and George take turns to ride the different machines, always aware that at any time the tourist train hauled by a Queensland BB18¼ steam locomotive might be traversing the same route and safeworking would be needed to pass the popular loco. The ‘job’ on this day is to follow the train checking for any signs of

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spot fires, but after three days of rain the pressure is off and they can focus on other trackside interests. It’s amazing how exposed they appear—two blokes sitting up there with nothing much more than a whipper-snipper to carry them along. On another recent trip undertaken by the Society, nearly 20 cars and their complement of drivers and observers took off from Stanthorpe in southern Queensland and trundled over the scenic tablelands on a 220 km round trip to the historic NSW-Queensland border station of Wallangarra—by all accounts a brilliant six-hour run across rivers and gorges, leading to an overnight campout. Is it any wonder that for a son and father team like Ken and George the chance to travel with a gang on these zippy little machines is completely addictive?

The Zig Zag Railway

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he industrial history of the ‘Great Zig Zag Railway’ is fascinating, and its latest incarnation is just one of the chapters in a story that goes back to the railway construction boom of the 1860s. It was built as an affordable way to descend the western face of the NSW Blue Mountains in a series of switchbacks. When the Zig Zag Railway opened in 1869 the 11 km line was hailed as an engineering marvel, being the largest of its kind in the world at the time. It was bypassed by a series of tunnels in 1910, and after the rails were removed it was left open as a scenic tourist road. In the early 1970s restoration began using Queensland Railway steam locomotives, rolling stock and narrow gauge track. Queenslanders are just the lastest wave of outsiders to beset the Zig Zag’s once proud NSW-only pedigree, with the restoration decisions helping the railway become a magnet for Queenslanders interested in a slice of Queensland rail history on ‘foreign’ soil. For Ken and George it offers a golden opportunity to take their QR section cars on a narrow-gauge journey through new and unfamiliar territory.

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I Think I Can John and his steam traction engine Big boy: John Toy: Sooty Description: Steamroller-convertible traction engine (meaning it can be easily changed from one to the other) Key info: Two-cylinder compound engine, 160–180 psi operating pressure Power: 4 hp—‘Pulls 9 tons behind it’ Speed: 10 kph Weight: 10 tons

Size: 5.4 m Date in service: 1926 Value: $75–$80,000 First toy: ‘Dinky pedal car that I made a trailer for. I’ve been into towing things from an early age’ Other toys: ‘Couple of portable engines’ Four horse-drawn wagons A workman’s van A Furphy water cart

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visit another collector, drop in on a rally or just chalk up some miles. The kind of road trip that John and his mates enjoy most is something you don’t see every day on a busy highway, and they draw a lot of attention. More than anything it looks like a train, albeit with rubber tyres over its giant cast iron wheels. When John and his

ohn’s beautifully restored ten-ton steampowered traction engine, chugging down the road pulling a couple of vintage wagons, is followed by a string of cars waiting to overtake. At least once a year John will gather the troops and fire up the 1920s vintage engine he affectionately calls Sooty for a ‘road run’ like this, traversing the countryside to 83

entourage pull into a roadside rest stop to meet up with the local fire truck (standing by to give his engine a much-needed drink), the banked-up cars don’t burn off in an impatient rage as they normally would for any other ‘slowcoach’—they all crawl by, heads out, gawking at this steamy blast from the past. This pit stop is smoko time for man and machine, so the fire truck, driven by a tractor collector friend, Norm, is positioned next to the engine and the water transfer begins. The crew also includes Ian, who’s up on the footplate with John, and the relief crew Fred and Noel (and his dog Chloe), who are taking it easy in the vintage workman’s van (restored by John, of course) that gets towed along behind. Kevin brings up the rear in a support vehicle, a classic late 1950s Fordson tractor. ‘It’s our annual holiday,’ John chuckles. ‘We do it because we can.’ They’re on the biggest run they’ve done to date, a 250 km cross-country trip from Boorowa (where they attended the local wool 84  Big Boys’ Toys

The road train makes steady progress on the road to Wellington

festival) to Wellington, where John and Sooty (and John’s understanding wife, Barbara) have a property. The aim is a leisurely 50 km per day, but on the first day they clock up 70, and being ahead of schedule they can afford an expansive morning tea break. ‘What we’re doing is just the way they did things,’ referring to the original owners. ‘They travelled around the country with a rig just like this. They’d call into a property, cut chaff, pump water, any big jobs that were needed. Then they’d get up and go to the

next place. Basically, this is what it’s all about—bringing back its original life,’ he says, pulling the fire hose out of Sooty’s tank. John talks of the time when he first saw engines like this in action and said to himself that he’d like to do that one day. A series of stationary engines and horse-drawn vehicles later, and he had enough skills to tackle his first big traction engine job. The local council had a big Fowler steam traction engine in its depot, and John was persuaded to maintain it for them. He still looks after it now, but it inspired him to procure one of his own—Sooty. ‘I then had a big restoration job ahead of me. Apart from the boiler it was a total wreck. I did all the bearings, re-geared the gears, sandblasted, resprayed and put on a new roof.’ He had it up and running within a mere six months, but for the last five years he’s been working on it consistently. ‘I can’t use it in the summer months because of fire bans, so I do the work then and make sure she’s ready for the winter running season.’

Once everything’s packed away, Norm takes off in the fire truck giving a short blast on the air horn to clear the small gathering of spectators that Sooty invariably attracts. (There are even members from the Buick Car Club, themselves on a rally, who’ve pulled up to take shots of their beauties with Sooty, which just happens to be about the same age as their vintage Buicks.) Then it’s ‘all aboard’ and ‘onward to Wellington’. John gives a knowing wink as he eases the panting beast onto the highway, with a mighty blast on the whistle to warn one and all that the ‘train’ is back on the road.

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A Dog’s Life Mal’s hyperactive Bulldog tractor Big boy: Mal Toy: Vintage tractor Description: Lanz Bulldog 15/30 Power: 15 hp on the drawbar, 30 hp on the flywheel Top speed: 7 kph Weight: 2½ tons Size: 11' long, 6'6" over wheels, 9' to top of air cleaner Date in service: 1932 Value: ‘In a recent British mag one was advertised for £18,000 [A$44,000], but I don’t sell them’

First toy: ‘My dog Bob was my first toy, and I built a billycart for him to pull’ Other toys: ‘22 other vintage tractors, including a German Eicher, a Case Row Crop three-wheeler, various Fordson Majors, an 18/36 Hart-Parr, an International, a John Deere, a Field Marshall, a Farmall Regular and a V8 Ford Ferguson, not to forget a Universal Moline from 1918 with original electrics’

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t’s not surprising that Mal has become devoted to vintage tractors. After all, if he hadn’t built one himself when he was 14, the vicious cycle of rural hardship may never have been broken. When he was nine months old, Mal lost his dad in a timber hauling accident, and the family had to make do with virtually nothing. Mal left school in

1948 at the age of 14 to work on the 100 acres they had, with only a couple of old draft horses. ‘I got sick of walking behind horses, so I decided to build a tractor,’ he says. ‘I found a couple of old Whippet car engines that were lying around and fitted the best one into an old tractor chassis, then fitted both gearboxes, one behind the other, to 87

Mal, on left, with his home-made demonstration unit he built to display tractors around the country in 1953

lower the ratio, and an old Blitz diff in the back. The lowest gearing I could manage was two reverses but it was all the power I needed to haul the harrows and move logs.’ In just a few years he’d earned enough money—selling corn to Kellogg’s—to buy 88  Big Boys’ Toys

Photo courtesy of Mal Cameron

his own tractor. ‘I bought a second-hand grey “Fergie” and went out contracting.’ By the 1960s he was working flat out in his own trucking business, with his wife, Colleen, doing the books—‘because my education didn’t leave me with much in that department’. And

along the way he was buying, selling, fixing, collecting and showing vintage tractors. Finally Mal and Colleen retired to a nice spot near the coast, with a block big enough to handle Mal’s retirement plans. Up went a shed (42 by 20 metres) and in went all his treasures—including his prized set of Sidchrome spanners from 1953, as well as the rusty carcass of a Bulldog he’d salvaged from a farm at Mt Tambourine. Now it stands proudly, fully restored, in the middle of 22 other rare and unusual machines. Mal has won many trophies for his restoration work, and no wonder—his attention to detail is wondrous. ‘What I do first is evaluate the tractor and gather any missing bits from my mates, swap meets or best of all by putting an ad in The Old Machinery Magazine.Then I only work on one section at a time, say the steering box. I just do that as a stand-alone piece. I think a lot of mistakes are made by blokes just pulling everything apart and laying them all over the place;

Mal bringing the Bulldog to life by heating the hot bulb with a blow lamp

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you lose where you’re up to and stuff goes missing.’ Every piece, every nut and bolt is put on the mesh for cleaning, sandblasting and priming, and is then painted separately and assembled, and all the nuts and bolts are hand-painted after assembly. Mal’s tractors are sprayed with three coats of HiChem 2 Pack, and they look fantastic. ‘People say to me, you must get sick of rusty iron,’ says Mal. ‘Well, I say it’s about meeting nice people with the same interest. I like to go to the rallies, usually take about three tractors with me.’ They have a club called the Mid-North Coast Machinery Restoration Club which has 168 members from as far away as New Zealand, Queensland and Melbourne. Every Fathers’ Day the club holds the Rusty Iron Rally at Macksville in NSW.

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How about a private rally right now on his back lawn? Sure enough, without too much fuss the blow lamp is set under the ‘hot bulb’ that sits on the head of the Bulldog’s engine, the steering wheel is taken out of its usual spot and inserted in the middle of the flywheel. A gentle rock back and forth with the wheel and phoomp, the single horizontal cylinder fires and the flywheel starts to spin. Once Mal checks that she’s spinning in the forward direction and the steering wheel is back in its column, it’s off—the dance of the Lanz Bulldog. What a great life for this pedigree working dog! (Just don’t play dead, or Mal will have you stripped down to the bone in no time.) Phoomp, phoomp, phoomp it barks, bouncing up and down like any pampered, prizewinning purebred would do.

The Lanz Bulldog

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he Bulldog was developed by Fritz Huber for the Lanz company in Germany in 1921 and went on to be an extremely successful design. Compared to the heavy, cumbersome and complex tractors available from the US in the 1920s, the powerful Lanz ‘lugging’ tractor was simple to operate and just about any layperson could fix it if needed. The Bulldog was also renowned for being able to run on virtually anything— usually diesel, but it could also operate efficiently on crude oil, thick crude, waste sump oil and sometimes even bitumen from the roads (this was melted and the liquids obtained from it were mixed with whatever was around). The materials and workmanship was of a high grade, and more than 100,000 tractors were built and exported all over the world. The Lanz factory built a wide range of material for the army during World War Two, including munitions, guns and a versatile truck-type tractor. This made the factory a target for Allied bombing, and it was virtually obliterated by the end of the war. Production started again in the late 1940s, and eventually Lanz merged with the John Deere company in the mid-1950s.

Drawing courtesy of Ploughbook Sales

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The Lights of Cobb & Co. Reliving the days of the stagecoach with Rob Name: Rob Toy: Cobb & Co. coach Description: Passenger stagecoach Built by: Pioneer Carriage Works—Mark Burton Power: Max 5 hp Speed: 45 kph ‘at a canter’ Weight: 450 kg

Size: Licensed to carry eight Date in service/first run: 1990 Value: $20,000 First toy: ‘Red rocking horse, then a calico cowboy tent’ Other toys: ‘Six other horse-drawn vehicles, from spring carts to a stately wedding carriage’

‘Tchk-tchk! Git-up!’ ‘Hold fast, there!’ and down the range we go; Five hundred miles of scattered camps will watch for Cobb & Co.

camp that are now the path for trains, cars and planes. A stagecoach with Cobb & Co. emblazoned on its side is an iconic symbol of an Australia that has all but vanished. It’s almost impossible to imagine what such a time was like in rural Australia—until you go to Rob’s place. A couple of years back Rob heard about an old shed behind a shop in the country town of Wellington in NSW which was

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enry Lawson’s The Lights of Cobb & Co. paints a vivid picture of the roaring days when the stagecoach was king. In the 1800s Cobb & Co. dominated the dusty routes from rail head to outback 93

going to be pulled down. The faint remnants of hand-painted lettering still existed on the corrugated iron above the door . . . ‘Cobb & Co.’. He knew at once that this was a rare original survivor of a once vast network and, being a complete devotee of the Cobb & Co. legend since he was a kid, he had to have it. Now it stands in pride of place among the many rustic farm sheds and the colonial timber slab homestead that nestles on the slopes of Rob’s rugged bush property. ‘I’ve always been into horses and horse-drawn vehicles,’ he says. ‘And even when I was a kid I dreamed of having a stagecoach one day.’ And now he has his own Cobb & Co. coach. Originally made for the now-defunct historical theme park Old Sydney Town, it was rebuilt using the original metals and new hardwood timbers. Rob has taken this classic workhorse of the bush and given it a new, more relaxed, life—mostly doing shows, films or historic celebrations. Rob’s favourite outing for the outfit is Australia Day because, he says, 94  Big Boys’ Toys

‘it’s pretty hard to be upstaged when you pull into the ceremony on a stagecoach’. On occasion Rob has been known to relive those tough days by having his own private re-enactment, harnessing up the team for a quiet run up the mountain and back. Apart from the odd broken shaft, one of which happened in the middle of a creek, his decades of equine adventure have been thankfully disaster-free. The only thing he has a problem with is driving in an environment where he can’t control the situation,

because ‘people just don’t understand when you’re out on the road, they whiz past like there’s no tomorrow. Things can get pretty hairy when you’ve got a fully loaded coach and four horses on the rein and you’re not on top of it all.’ Rob goes on to describe the job of working with horses: ‘Breaking in a new horse and then training it for team work takes some effort and also, because my horses are not used every day, unlike the old days, I have to spend a fair bit of time preparing them for an outing.’ One golden rule for the old Cobb & Co. drivers that Rob is prepared to overlook is the one that strictly forbade them, on pain of instant dismissal, from having a woman beside them in the driver’s seat. ‘Hey, I’m happy to have a bunch of girls up here with me, even give them the reins if they want,’ he says with a knowing chuckle, suggesting this is not an uncommon occurrence. It’s no wonder girls are tempted to sit up there with

the driver—to see a bloke like Rob at the helm of his team in full flight is a sight to behold, the combination of man, beast and machine. It’s a reminder that long before overhead camshafts and fuel-injected turbos, boys still had their toys—they just relied on a different kind of horsepower.

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Cobb & Co.

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he ‘Common Stage Cart’ was the colony’s first public conveyance, running from Sydney to Paramatta in 1814 and was the forerunner of what would be the mainstay of public transport in the colonial era. A number of American entrepreneurs, one of whom included Freeman Cobb, set up a coaching service in Melbourne in 1854. Their success was based on knowledge gained from the great coaching companies of America like Wells Fargo, and on the importation of coaches more suitable to rougher Australian conditions. Things like leather strap springs made for a much more comfortable ride (if the rocking motion didn’t give you sea-sickness), but riding a stagecoach was hot (or cold), dusty (or everyone was splattered with mud and the coach bogged) and invariably uncomfortable and long. Cobb & Co. essentially split, amicably, in the 1860s, with Cobb & Co. in Victoria, NSW and Queensland being run as separate but friendly entities. The NSW HQ was in Bathurst, and they could do Bathurst to Hill End in 12 hours flat, taking six hours off their competitors’ times—not bad for 60 miles! By the 1870s they were harnessing 6000 horses every day, their coaches were travelling 45,000 kilometres a week, and profits from the mail service alone

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more than justified the expansion. Through good planning and better horses, Cobb & Co. were able to halve the time of some of the routes. The drivers were men who, like Rob, had a reputation for good-natured charm, civility and damn fine horsemanship. But as new railways were constructed, coach routes were pushed father out, maintaining a lifeline for the isolated communities of the Outback. After World War One, service cars and railways had all but taken over, and the last Cobb & Co. stagecoach ran from Yeulba to Surat in central The Original Cobb & Co. booking office in Bathurst not long after it opened in 1862 Queensland in 1924. Photo courtesy of Cobb & Co. Museum

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V for Valiant Anthony’s World War Two tugboat Big boy: Anthony Toy: Tugboat, Valiant Description: ‘V series harbour work boat, based on the design of a North American log-working boat’ Built by: Lars Halvorsen and Sons, Sydney Power: Gardiner 6LX diesel engine, 100 hp Top speed: 9 knots

Weight: 20 tons Size: 40' (12 m) Date in service/first run: 1938 Value: $80,000 First toy: ‘Toboggan, followed by many boats!’ Other toys: ‘A collection of pinhole cameras, made by me’

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The view from the elevated veranda at Anthony’s harbourside home reveals an armada of pleasure craft at their moorings, and like a character in a boiler suit at a cocktail party Valiant stands out in the crowd with all the confidence that comes from a career of pushing and pulling others around the place. Thinking of a tugboat as ‘sexy’ is a bit of a surprise, but in the case of Anthony’s love of this solid timber tug it may be true.

t’s not that common to find a tugboat enjoying a dignified retirement long after its use-by date, but Anthony Browell’s Valiant is indeed blessed. This tug is still up to the task, and Anthony is happy to help out his mates with the odd nudge if required, though the biggest regular challenge Valiant faces these days is to haul a few kilos of prawns back from the Sydney Fish Markets every Saturday morning. 99

Van, Vim and Valiant manoeuvre a work barge adjacent to the Harbour Bridge in the early 70s Photo courtesy of Anthony Browell

‘Wooden boats feel good when you walk on them. When you find one you like, you mightn’t exactly fall in love, but you do fall in lust,’ he muses with the conviction of one completely besotted. Anthony’s love of boats began when he was a kid in England. ‘Being near the Thames, 100  Big Boys’ Toys

my father always had little boats—that always broke down.’ He came to Australia as a tenpound Pom in 1969 and never thought about having a boat until sometime in the mid-1970s when he had the crazy idea to float around Australia on a raft. ‘A mate alerted me to the fact that rocks and rafts don’t go together. Why, instead, don’t we just try a river?’ So, in 1977 they built a raft from thirty-two 44-gallon drums tied together. It had a big old World War Two boiler and a steam engine driving a small paddlewheel at the back. They spent the next few months chugging 1200 miles down the Darling River. Anthony recounts how the trip got him thinking about riverboats in a much more serious way. For a couple of years in the 1980s he ran a paddle-steamer, Emmy Lou, along the Murray, which had taken him two years to build in a paddock at Moama. After that he had a series of boats, including a splendid little ferry called The Scout. ‘All these wooden

boats were very dodgy when I got them,’ he says. ‘The boats that needed help happened to be the only boats I really liked. When Valiant came along I spent the next two-and-a-half months, with shipwright Edi Hrovatin, and a labourer or two rebuilding pretty much everything on the boat.’ Valiant is indeed a gem. Her graceful lines are attributable to her designers and builders, the famous Lars Halvorsen & Sons at Ryde in Sydney, who were commissioned in 1937 to build six tugs for the Sydney Harbour Trust. The tugs’ names all started with V, hence their grouping as ‘V’ boats, and when the war came they were all requisitioned for active service. Three of the tugs went to Tobruk and were scuttled at the end of the campaign there in 1943, but two of the remaining Vs—the Vim and the Valiant—went to war with the US Navy in New Guinea. They both survived their tour of duty and returned to Sydney in 1945, where the Valiant was

renamed the Valiant Star (as another tug had been named Valiant) and continued its work on the busy harbour, mostly pushing things around, or up the river to Parramatta. In 1985 the tugs were sold, and Valiant Star went to work up on the Hawkesbury River. Anthony reckons, ‘When I bought her she was really on her last legs; if she’d gone on much longer she’d be history.’ He thinks the copper-clad hull probably saved her life. The other Valiant was sunk off Lion Island, so the Valiant Star was able to reclaim its original moniker. When asked about the motivation for all this commitment—saving and restoring old boats, devoting many hours and dollars to the task—Anthony replies, ‘You have to be struck—logic doesn’t come into it. With a boat like this there’s a sense of tradition, it’s what you grew up with. Early on Saturday mornings, there’s no-one out there and here’s you and this gem of a vessel.You can’t believe it’s legal.’ Workhorses  101

Iron Horsing Around Barry’s steam locomotive Big boy: Barry Toy: 3112 Description: C30 class 4-6-4 tank team locomotive Built by: Beyer Peacock & Co Limited, Manchester, UK Power: 650 hp, two cylinders, 19¼" bore—‘Can pull 200 tons up a 1 in 40 grade’ Top speed: 80 kph Weight: 73 tons in working order (4 tons coal capacity) Size: 41' Date in service: 4 November 1914 Fuel consumption: 40 miles to a ton of coal, 60 gallons of water per mile Value: ‘Occasionally similar locos in the US have been known to change hands for anything up to half a mill

US. Railways book value when it was condemned in 1974 was $8,000 (which was the original $5,500 purchase price plus the cost of a new boiler in 1955 of $2,500) First toy: ‘Clockwork Hornby train set I got for my birthday. I remember I was about four and I was bundled off to bed and I could hear my dad, my uncle and my grandfather in the lounge room playing with it’ Other toys: 1898 Burrell single-crank compound 11-ton traction engine 1911 Armstrong-Whitworth veteran car (tourer) ‘I gave my old train set away but I’ve got my dad’s clockwork loco which I wasn’t allowed to have until I was 21’

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up for scrap was almost unbearable. There was a scramble by a few dedicated souls in the late 1960s and early 70s to retrieve what they could from ‘rotten rows’ around the country, but the

or so many of us who revere steam locomotives and remember their last days in regular service, the thought that they would disappear from our lives to be cut

Photo opposite by Oliver Strewe

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rest of us just watched with dismay as the great huffing monsters were supplanted by the efficient drone of the diesels and electrics. The last days of suburban tank engine 3112, a steam locomotive that had been a workhorse on the NSW railways from the early 1900s and had chalked up over 3 million kilometres, was typical of what occurred at the time. Her salvage at the 11th hour, however, heralded a most unusual fate that would ultimately bring her into the possession of Barry and his son John. She now rides out her days in their care and control. If anyone was destined to own a full-sized steam locomotive just for fun it was Barry. His great grandfather, Robert Tulloch, came to Australia with 10 shillings in his pocket in 1877 and went on to found a famous engineering firm which was a major supplier of rolling stock to the railways. ‘As a kid, Dad took me to the model steam railway at West Ryde and I remember being absolutely fascinated that you could have a miniature 104  Big Boys’ Toys

A 30 class, not long after manufacture, ready for its early morning run to Hornsby Royce Mack Collection, courtesy of Barry Tulloch

locomotive that burnt coal, something you just lit with a match,’ says Barry. In his teens he began putting together a workshop so he could make them himself. Eventually he left his job as an electrical fitter with the railways in 1966 to concentrate full time on engineering in his workshop in suburban Sydney. ‘More and more work came in,’ Barry recalls. ‘I got more and more equipment and it eventually put me in the position to be able to restore a locomotive.’

3112 on the turntable at Cowra at the start of her restoration Photo courtesy of Barry Tulloch

Barry purchased 3112 at auction for $21,500 at the end of 1986 when the Lachlan Vintage Village decided to sell off some of its exhibits. Getting it out of the place was a huge challenge as it was land-locked and could only go out by road. ‘We dug a large hole, backed the low loader into it, put rails on the deck of the truck and rolled the loco on. Then we drove it to a railway siding not too far away at Eugowra, where it was rolled off down a railway loading bank and then

she was hauled to Cowra by another 30 Class steam loco from the Lachlan Valley Railway Society,’ Barry explains, making the job sound like a piece of cake. The Society provided space for the restoration and work commenced almost straight away. A small army of men and women made the trek up to Cowra each weekend to help with the massive task. ‘I wanted to have the loco finished in time for the Bicentenary celebrations in 1988, which meant we only had a bit over a year to get it done. Thankfully the boiler was in reasonable condition but everything needed to be pulled apart and rebuilt . . . It was mates like Ian ­MacDonald and his ability to get things done that really got me over the line.’ Not to mention his ever-supportive wife Elizabeth who kept the troops fed and watered. Returning the old loco to the metals of Sydney’s suburban rail network on Australia Day 1988 was something of a personal triumph for Barry. Workhorses  105

Most of the work 3112 does these days is the fun stuff—leading tour trains in conjunction with other heritage train operators like 3801 Ltd and the Rail Transport Museum. Frequently Barry drives and his son John is his fireman, an arrangement that has worked well over the years and is complemented by all the behind-the-scenes work they both do together keeping the loco going. At the end of the day 3112 retreats to the sanctuary of the cavernous Eveleigh Workshops in Sydney, the place where, for more than a century, hundreds of locos just like Barry’s were built and maintained. Eveleigh has space set aside for heritage restorations and it’s where 3112 gets the once (or twice) over in preparation for its next tour of duty. ‘Sometimes it’s just a small thing that makes you really appreciate what you’ve done,’ he says, making a point that comes down to the core of his passion. ‘There’s a spot on the main western line just out of the city where you can see yourself and your train reflected 106  Big Boys’ Toys

3112 outside the Large Erecting Shop at the Eveleigh locomotive workshops Photo by Oliver Streve

in a long line of mirrored glass buildings beside the track. You may have had the big end brass in the lathe a couple of days before and then you’re along the line and you see all your handiwork reflected in this giant mirror. All the motions going around and working perfectly, no smoke or flames, it’s a great sense of satisfaction.’ It’s pure magic watching 3112 from the workshops as she pounds on down the track toward Central Station and it’s hardly surprising that Barry and John, up in the cab, are waving and beaming like excited school boys who’ve been given the keys to Dad’s car for the first time.

3112 and the ‘30 class’

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elivery of 145 heavy tank locomotives of the 30 class to the NSW Railways began in 1903, to help with the lack of motive power and the challenging grades on the expanding Sydney rail system. These efficient locos made a name for themselves as reliable, trouble-free and good steaming tank engines. When the Sydney suburban system began to be electrified in 1928 more than half of them were converted for use on country branch lines. From 1957 onwards they began to be withdrawn as diesels and electrics took over their traditional routes and by 1971 only three remained in active service, one of which was 3112. Her last days were spent shunting in the Bathurst yard and nearby sidings with an occasional turn pushing trains up the steep Raglan bank, out of Bathurst. On 10 February 1972 she was steamed and worked a full day for the last time as a NSW railway workhorse. A few days later she was set aside for ‘storage’. Earmarked for scrapping by the railways in 1974, she was selected by Roy Miles to join the Lachlan Vintage Village collection and was steamed out to Parkes in 1974 to become a static exhibit. Barry Tulloch’s turn came in 1986 when the loco was auctioned at the Vintage Village at Forbes—and the rest, as they say, is history.

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The Light Fantastic Ron and Wayne’s restored lighthouse Big boys: Ron and Wayne Toy: Lighthouse at Vlaming Head, WA Key info: Chance Bros second-order catadioptric prism, 55 mm vapourised kerosene burner and clockwork geared driver Power: 1500 candella, magnified to 220,000 candella Speed: 1 revolution every 20 seconds Weight: ‘Prism and mechanism 5 tons, couldn’t hazard a guess on the lighthouse!’ Size: 40' high by 10' at the base Date in service: First lit 10 November 1912, relit 14 July 2001

Value: ‘Original cost £16,656 (the glass prism alone was £5,094). We spent about $18,000 to restore it, not including man hours’ First toy: Ron—‘Always fascinated with torches, just loved my dad’s one’ Wayne—‘Always fascinated with pulling clocks and watches apart’ Other toys: Ron—‘A nice little fishing boat and my classic Mamiya 6x4.5 TLR camera’ Wayne—‘Commodore 5.7 Clubsport; Honda XR 650 racing bike; I’m a pilot so about to get wings too (as you see I love speed)’

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ord had got out that Ron and Wayne were on track to relight the lamp in the old lighthouse they’d been slaving over for the best part of a year. A decent-sized crowd had gathered at sunset on Vlaming Head on WA’s north-west Photo opposite courtesy of Ron Campbell and Wayne Britton

coast in anticipation of their treasured lighthouse coming back to life after more than three decades of abandonment. The moment to reignite the oil-fired lamp inside the giant glass prism and set the clockwork mechanism into action was upon them, and the honour was 109

Photo courtesy of Wayne Britton and Ron Campbell

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given to their mate Ken Baker, a retired lighthouse engineer who’d helped them with knowledge, spare parts, history and comradeship. With a heart full of emotion Ken performed his task, sending a beam of bright light across the bay for the first time in 34 years, adding a few tears to the blood and sweat the boys had already poured into the massive project. Ron and Wayne seemed to have a destiny with this lighthouse. Ron, who’d been hugging the coast most of his life, is proud of the fact he still has his old jumper from when he attended Beacon Hill High School, which just happens to have a lighthouse emblem shining away on the pocket. Wayne, with a father who served in the Australian Navy, the merchant navy and then with the Geelong Harbour Trust, has always had the sea in his blood—not to mention the fact they lived in full view of the Point Lonsdale lighthouse at Port Phillip Bay. When Ron and Wayne met on the job at the navy communications base at Exmouth in 1995 they hit it off.

According to Wayne, the design to resurrect the old lighthouse was ‘inspired madness’ and Ron says, ‘You’ve got to be passionate and stupid to do what we did.’ The Vlaming Head lighthouse drew them in like moths to a flame, initially as volunteers doing invaluable and urgent salvation work to the derelict but still intact vintage interior. No sooner inside, though, than the guys became hooked on its significance, its history and the wondrous gizmos that made up its inner workings. By the second day of scrubbing and scraping they’d hatched a plan that would see them become the successful tenderers in a bid to have the lighthouse made accessible to the public. ‘We had no business plan or anything,’ says Ron, ‘just visions of grandeur.’ February 2001 saw them take over responsibility for the lighthouse’s future, and the first job was a fact-finding mission, explains Wayne. ‘We took time off work and travelled all over the place looking at other lighthouses

and tourism ventures, collecting ideas and information, and this is when we ran into Ken.’ Ken had actually worked on Vlaming Head in the 1950s as part of his job with the Commonwealth Lighthouse Service. When the boys made contact he not only knew a stack about how it all worked, but was quick to point out that she originally ran on kerosene and could be operated in the authentic way again. Without stopping for breath the boys worked on the lighthouse for four solid months. The first really messy and potentially dangerous job involved stripping decades of lead paint from the metal work and walls using a high-tech peel-away stripper. Next, sections of rusted-out ironwork and the rare curved glass window panes on the lanternhouse were replaced, and the whole building repainted. Then various components of the mechanism were taken apart, cleaned, repaired and reassembled. The five-ton glass prism, which floats on a 150 kg bed of mercury, Workhorses  111

had to be cleaned in situ, as did the weight tube that carries the 100-odd kilos of weights that are wound up from the floor to the top to drive the clockwork gearbox mechanism that in turn rotates the prism. The original 55 mm Chance Bros kero burner, imported from England in 1912, and rare silk mantle, which had to be sourced from a maker in Malta, were only able to be restored thanks to Ken’s priceless experience and precious components. The real pay-off for Wayne was seeing what he reckoned was at least 70 percent of the local population, more than had ever gathered at Lighthouse Hill before, there to witness the light come on, something most

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of them had never seen. ‘The expressions on people’s faces, it all came together for me that night, it was unforgettable. Did Ron tell you we got Australia Day Awards for the Community Event of the Year?’ No, but what Ron did talk about was what it does for him after the crowds have departed. ‘It’s a really wonderful experience to sit up there at night alone and listen to the rumble of the rollers and clock box running and the blow-torch sound of the burner combined with the smell of burning kero and the light’s beam sweeping the bay. I feel really privileged to experience it, it’s like being transported to another time and place.’

History of a lighthouse

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he wreck of the SS Mildura, off the west coast of North West Cape in 1907 that resulted in a board of inquiry recommending a lighthouse at Vlaming Head. The remote location was not the easiest site for the structure, and work didn’t commence until 1911. It was made of local limestone and cement and accompanied by a residence. When the first light was lit by keeper Harry Powell, the steamer Western Australia reported that the light was visible at a distance of 23 nautical miles. The light operated each night without a break until 1943 when it was closed as a war precaution. It operated again from 1946 until the mid-1960s when the American Navy set up their enormous transmitter at Exmouth and an electric aircraft beacon was erected near the base. The light was extinguished for the last time by keeper Colin Gunter on 26 April 1967. In 1995 the Shire of Exmouth purchased the lighthouse from the federal government. The building’s deterioration was exacerbated by the onslaught of Cyclone Vance in 1999, but the damage alerted the locals to the need for a restoration plan. In 2001 the external restoration was completed by the Shire, and Wayne and Ron finished the job. Approximately 10,000 people visited the lighthouse in the first year alone. Workhorses  113

All Engines Great and Small Jim’s diesel-guzzling destroyer engine Big boy: Jim Toy: Stationary engine Description: English Electric destroyer engine Built by: English Electric Co Ltd, Rugby, UK, 1960 Power: 2200 hp—28,272 cu" or 45.6 litres, 428 rpm Weight: 61 tons Size: 9 m × 4 m Date in service/first run: 1960, running to about 1985

Value: Scrap—‘$3000 at $25 a ton, but when it was shipped out it was insured for $1 million’ First toy: ‘Dad gave me a Renowned steam-powered donkey engine which started the rot at age seven’ Other toys: ‘65 engines of various types, including an 1842 George Russell engine—the oldest working engine in Australia—plus hundreds of smaller bits’

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hat would you do if someone rang you up to say they’d like to give you a 61-ton destroyer engine, that is half the size of a house? Even those of us who love to play with all engines great and small would consider it a bit of ‘engine overkill’. Not Jim. This sort of thing is right up his alley, and if he doesn’t have the time to deal with it his wife, Jenny, probably will. Together this engine-mad team has

been able to tackle some fascinating and complex projects but the destroyer engine was a serious challenge. The call Jim got in 1998 was from a National Trust consultant who was trying to place this heritage-listed engine in safe hands. Jim was invited to provide a home for it, and it was determined that the best outcome was not only to donate it to Jim and Jenny but to deliver it to them, and build a shed for it! The 115

engine would become the biggest exhibit in a museum of important industrial relics which Jim and Jenny took on as their ‘relaxing’ retirement project. ‘It came in on a 96-wheel low loader and it took two cranes to unload . . . ,’ Jim explains. ‘It was originally built as an engine for a destroyer, but in 1960 it was sent to ACI glassmakers [one of Sydney’s biggest industrial complexes, in Waterloo] where it ran the alternator for electrical generation at the factory.’ According to Jim, there would’ve been a hundred or more of these around the country, but now there are probably only half a dozen. Jim and Jenny are standing looking down onto the engine—the oversized cylinder heads, crankshaft and humungous conrods. ‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ he calls out, but he reckons it’s unlikely they’ll ever get it going. ‘It’d take $5000 in oil just to lubricate it, and then it would consume a 44-gallon drum of diesel fuel every 84 seconds, which would be right out of our modest budget.’ 116  Big Boys’ Toys

Jim started out as an apprentice toolmaker, but went into the family firm as an accountant. Part of his job involved going around doing the books for factories and workshops, where he got to see all kinds of amazing stuff—the steam-powered industrial revolution was still alive and well in the 1950s and 60s. ‘This was pre the electricity grid, and most towns and industries had their own generators. I saw the loss of many of these old machines. I was always interested and spent countless weekends dragging girlfriends around to various vintage machinery shows and meets.’ Jenny grew up in a family of 11 kids and was expected to know which end of the screwdriver to hold. Jim and Jenny met at work in the early 1980s and decided to buy a country property in 1986 so they could ‘spread out’. When Jim did a rural museums course it gave them even more inspiration to collect and restore. His search for treasures hit pay dirt in 1996 when he bought an old engine

from a Queensland collector. On the outside it looked like any primitive 19th-century single-cylinder horizontal stationary engine, but when they finally got around to the restoration in 2000 (which included more than 1800 hours of work by Jim, Jenny and their friend Roy) they realised it was very unusual. It was too bulky to be American, and too rough to be English, Jim thought. Initial research narrowed it down to being an engine that was made by George Russell & Co. of Sussex Street, Sydney, which went out of business in 1855. Experts from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney considered it to be a significant early model and so Jim decided to enter it in the National Trust Heritage Awards. In 2003 it became the only engine to win this prestigious award. It’s now recognised as the oldest surviving steam engine built by an Australian maker, most agreeing that the number stamped in its frame dates it from May 1842. It is now an exhibit at the Turon Technology Museum near Sofala in central

The George Russell steam engine, reportedly the oldest Australian made engine in existence

NSW, so Jim and Jenny are just as proud of it as they are of their destroyer engine. Jim and Jenny aren’t the type to sit out their retirement—the museum keeps expanding all the time. Jim recently discovered the magic of G-gauge garden railways, engines that give him just as much fun as the big engines but don’t use anything like a 44gallon drum of fuel per trip. Just goes to show that when it comes to boys and their toys, size doesn’t really matter. Workhorses  117

What a Gem Dan and his pearl lugger, Pam Big boy: Dan Toy: Pam (formerly Dominion) Description: Gaff-rigged, clipper-bowed pearl lugger Motor: Gardiner 75 hp Top speed: 10–12 knots Weight: 30 tonne Size: 65' Date in service: Originally 1901, most recent launch 2008 Value: ‘Dominion was valued at £375 in 1904. Value now— 20 years of blood, sweat and tears. What’s that worth?’

First toy: Slug gun ‘Only ever read one book as a kid cover to cover— Robinson Crusoe’ Other toys: Condor motorcycle used by the Germans in 1939 ‘A couple of Harleys’ Four Ford single-spinner utes ’62 Dodge pushbutton auto 1880 horse-drawn spindle-back buggy

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in love with Pam, a pearling lugger over 100 years old. Dan’s affair, however, has the absolute approval of his wife, Wendy. Dan first fell for Pam back in 1985 at Fisherman’s Wharf in Darwin. With graceful lines and the promise of a future sailing the South Seas together, this grand old lady had

an is a romantic with a soft spot for anything with history attached. His house is 120 years old, the butcher’s shop he bought for his homebrew and hunting business in Glengarry is 110 years old, his motorbikes are vintage and his car is a classic. So it’s no surprise he’s fallen 119

Pam in 1988 under sail in Darwin

Photo courtesy of Dan McLay

all the qualities Dan admired. But it wasn’t until three years later that he finally won her when she was put up for sale. Once he had Pam in the shed he rigged up a jig to hold her together—he knew she was going to be sitting around for a while. In fact she sat around for ten years until Dan 120  Big Boys’ Toys

finally worked out how he was going to restore her. A Federation grant in 2001 helped kick things along. Eric Ericsson and Mark Henger were the main boat builders on the job and for three years they pulled apart and replaced every part of the boat. Along the way they took on 120 Work for the Dole trainees in timber boat building. The hardest part of the job was getting the right timbers. Two massive pieces of yellow stringybark harvested around Bruthen in Victoria were used for the keel, the jarrah for the hull and planking came from recycled wharf timbers and railway sheds in WA, the deck is Tasmanian celery top pine and the masts and spars are Douglas fir. The old rotten timbers were consumed to fire the steaming process, Pam’s old skin helping to fuel her facelift, and all the original copper dumps were removed and reused. Using ancient shipbuilding techniques, the dumps were driven in with a sledgehammer—the whole boat is fastened that way.

Dan had to keep a close eye on the cost of the project as materials weren’t covered by the government funding. Copper dumps are $4 each and there are 6000 or 7000 of them—hence the need to recycle. They even made some of their own dumps with a 50-ton ply press. Dan has tried to restore Pam as close as possible to the original 1924 restoration, but has added a few modern touches, including a stainless steel sheath on the keel, collision bulkheads and higher bulwarks for passenger safety. Pam is almost ready to be relaunched, but it’s been twenty years of hard labour to get her this far. When she first arrived in the lives of Dan and Wendy, their oldest child, Leah, was a toddler and son Justin wasn’t even born. The kids have grown up with a pearl lugger slowly evolving in their shed. Dan explains, ‘Bringing up the family, buying the timber and working as a rigger has kept me out of the pub. They say it’s a labour of love, but the love and the fantasy side of it

go out the window after about ten or fifteen years, and then it becomes a lot of hard work. If I’d known what was involved I probably wouldn’t have done it—insanity.’ But, in a moment of reflection, Dan observes ‘You’ve got to point yourself in one direction and at least finish something in your life. If you don’t leave something behind, if no-one restores history, there’d be no physical evidence of it. The way we’ve built this boat she should last for at least another 200 years.’ Workhorses  121

The history of Pam

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he pearl lugger Pam evolved from an earlier incarnation, Dominion, built in 1901. She was virtually completely rebuilt in 1924 by Captain Ansell Clement Gregory, a colourful local identity and civic leader in Broome, WA. He tried to start the cultured pearl industry there in the 1920s, which a lot of the local pearlers saw as a threat to their industry. The regulations stated that pearling companies could not build a new lugger, but they could repair or renovate an existing one—hence the complete rebuild of Dominion. Captain Gregory renamed the ship Pam after his four-year-old daughter, and Pam plied the pearling fields around Broome and Darwin up until World War Two. Captain Gregory moved part of his fleet, including Pam, to Darwin in the 1930s to establish a pearling industry there. Once the war in the Pacific began the government ordered ship owners to move their boats south if they didn’t want them destroyed or commandeered by the armed forces. Many ships were in fact destroyed by the army and navy because they didn’t want the invading force to have any transport down the coast of Australia. Those that survived, Pam among them, were mostly used for coastal surveillance.

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In 1974 Cyclone Tracey holed Pam, and she was deregistered and abandoned as a shipwreck. The harbour trust said ‘whoever owns it, either remove it or we’ll burn it’. It was saved, and a few owners later it finally came to Dan, who took it on in 1988. Dan received an interesting blast from the past once he’d started the restoration—a phone call from one Pam Nielsen, after whom Pam had been named! She was Captain Gregory’s daughter but had lived in the US since becoming a war bride in 1942. Since then she’d been telling her American family about how her father had had all these old sailing ships, and all of a sudden a friend rang up from Broome and told her the boat was being restored in Victoria! Pam has not only been to Australia to see Pam, she also paid Pam being lifted ready for transportation from Darwin for the new keel. Photo courtesy of Dan McLay

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Upstairs, Downstairs David’s double-decker Leyland bus Big boy: David Toy: Double-decker bus Description: Leyland TD4—Titan Double (Decker), v.4 Built by: Leyland Motors, Lancashire, body by Waddingtons Ltd, Camperdown, Sydney Key info: 8.6 litre Leyland diesel six-cylinder Power: 90–95 brake hp Top speed: ‘32½ mph, governed by an injector pump on the engine which was arranged so it could only inject enough fuel to let it get up to that speed. You could go 50 mph downhill but the diff wouldn’t like it’

Weight: ‘A little over 7½ tons and could carry up to 4 ton of passengers’ Size: 27' long (8 m), 8' wide (2.4 m), 14'3" high (4.34 m) Date in service: 30 June 1937—finished passenger service in 1959 Value: $50–$60,000 First toy: ‘Heavily into Dinky model cars (naturally any double-decker model), Meccano and later HO Hornby trains’ Other toys: Albion, 1946 model CX19 double-decker ‘Still got the Dinky toys’

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time his Dad came home from the war and David’s first word to him was ‘bus’. ‘Well,’ as David said, ‘that’s how he arrived! I thought then as a kid that they sounded great—there was a special noise about that engine.’ Later in life David wanted to hear that sound again, but found that there were no old Leylands

distinctive sound from your past can   be an evocative thing. For David,   the purring of a pre-World War Two Leyland double-decker bus brings back waves of nostalgia, conjuring images of exciting trips to town, of his grandmother’s home beside a bus stop in Sydney’s North Shore, and of the 125

running anywhere, so he said to himself that if he wanted to hear it again he had to get one going. The various jobs and experiences David has had over the years provided some useful skills in achieving this dream. ‘I was always a tinkerer at home and Dad had a reasonable amount of tools. I remember making a steam engine at the age of about 12 or 13 that worked.’ In 1972 he bought his first double-decker when he saw an ad in the paper for a 1946 Albion for $600. These iconic green buses had been a common sight on Sydney’s streets for decades and had only been out of service for a year or two. ‘I couldn’t resist that. I just bought it and then thought, now what will I do with it? I know, we’ll have a family campervan! There had to be some excuse to have it.’ The Albion was done up on the inside like a guesthouse on wheels, and David’s four kids loved this four-wheeled, two-storey cubbyhouse—complete with one original seat upstairs at the back of the bus that David 126  Big Boys’ Toys

left, as it was the traditional seat teenagers would use for canoodling (which as it turns out his wife Penny can confirm). His grownup kids still love the buses. ‘My son Gwilym is our regular conductor, my daughter Briony is handy with the ticket collecting bag too and my five-year-old grandson Jackson loves the double decker and so Grandpa serves a useful purpose for him!’ In the mid-1980s a friend of David’s alerted him to an old double-decker that had been abandoned on a property out west; it had once been used at a mine and as a mobile shearers’ quarters. It was a rare Leyland TD4 model and was in pretty good condition, so a syndicate from the Historic Commercial Vehicle Association Co-operative (including David) formed to buy it and move it back to Sydney. When the other guys in the syndicate realised how serious David was they melted away, knowing he had the motivation and wherewithal to do it justice. ‘Funny thing was that when I came to register it as a historic

The old Leyland as found in the mid-1980s on a farm at Yeoval in central NSW Photo by Brian Mantle

vehicle I had to have proof of ownership and I had absolutely none! I had to get one of the members of the syndicate who I know well to sign a letter saying he’d agreed to sell this vehicle to me for the price of one dollar. The RTA gets very excited if you don’t own the vehicle.’ The restoration took sixteen years on and off, with work alternating between his huge workshop at home and the workshop in the old Tempe Bus Depot in Sydney’s inner west. Originally built in 1910 as a tram depot the place is an Aladdin’s Cave of historic vehicles, memorabilia and machinery that not only provides a base for the boys and their gear but also contains fantastic workshop facilities. As David says, ‘It’s an absolute godsend—all the stuff you need to construct a double-decker in the old way.’ At the depot one morning there’s a bit of discussion about who will take the gathering

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crowd of visitors for a bus ride. With dozens of vintage buses all representing different eras in Sydney’s history, where do you start? David’s TD4 is standing by, and people get in. This bus is perfect—the seats, the signs, the lighting, that heart-warming old six-cylinder diesel engine sound. David double-declutches the gears, easing his charge out the gates and onto a busy Highway One. Passengers include excited kids and even more excited parents, other bus enthusiasts and a couple of tourists from Germany. David’s in his element—a big bus to control, an audience, and a mate, John, acting as conductor to keep everyone in line. The TD4 is king of the road, making its round trip up past Sydney’s international terminal, which attracts plenty of attention from new arrivals wondering if this is their promised tour bus. They should be so lucky!

The toy shop

If you can’t wait, don’t want to get your hands dirty,

and have an unlimited budget, then get out your wallet and head off to the showroom for the other world of big boys’ toys – the one I bet you thought this book was going to be all about. The ultimate ‘dream machines’ that money can buy may well include some of these. Here’s what their marketing departments say  .  .  . 

Sunseeker motoryacht

AgustaWestland Grand Helicopter

Many will argue that Sunseeker’s 105 Yacht is a ‘living classic’ in the motoryachting world. Her awards cabinet is ample proof of her ability to impress.While she has matured with graceful elegance, she’s as magnificent today as she was when she was first conceived. Cost: approximately A$14.7 million if built to standard specifications.

Introducing a state-of-the-art light twin helicopter with high levels of passenger comfort and many cabin layout options, including a Gianni Versace-designed interior. High speed and excellent flying qualities. Unrivalled Cat A-Class 1 performance at MTOW (maximum take-off weight) in hot/high environment. Cost: US$6.5 million

Photo courtesy of Sunseeker Australia

Photo courtesy of Heliflite

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Ferrari 430 Scuderia

Harley-Davidson Road King

The Ferrari 430 Scuderia exudes uncompromising sportiness as a direct result of its close links to the world of racing. With 510 hp delivered at 8500 rpm by its naturally aspirated 4308 cm3 V8 engine, the 430 Scuderia boasts an extraordinarily low weight-power ratio of just 2.45 kg/hp, which allows it to sprint from 0 to 100 kph in just 3.6 seconds. It’s the fastest ever production Ferrari and a total big boy’s toy. Cost: A$580,000+

Here’s a two-wheel sculpture that’s anything but shy—the Road King at its most radical. A touring motorbike with big-time custom elbow room, tuned to perfectly entertain your ears with a meaty two-cylinder serenade from the twin cam 96 power plant. Don’t be shy. Let your metal sing. Cost: A$30,250

Photo courtesy of Ferrari

Photo courtesy of Harley Davidson

The toy shop  131

Four

Battle hardened These old fighters and defenders were once killers

but away from the conflict they can be seen in a whole new light. So much art and skill went into creating them that it’s no wonder boys with an eye for a good toy collect them for peacetime playthings. Here the idea of war games takes on a much more civilised meaning.

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Cannon Fodder Wes’s vintage naval carronade Big boy: Wes Toy: Cannon Description: 6 lb naval carronade and gun carriage Built by: Carron Company, Scotland Power: ‘At a 45° elevation, half a pound of powder will fire a 6-pound ball 1500 to 3000 metres’ Speed: ‘The carriage? However fast the guys can run it out! But the cannon can send a 6-pound ball 865 feet per second, or 590 mph’ Weight: 300 kg Size: 5' (1.8 m)

Date in service: 1820 Value: $10,000 (including trailer) First toy: Slug gun and model train set Other toys: ‘A remanufactured ex-VP 5 litre Commodore which I call the “V alphabet” due to the use of parts from almost every other model’ 1880s tenth scale muzzle-loading Howitzer cannon Musket 1895 lever-action Winchester ‘First Fleet uniforms, swords, tons of props’

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single warning shot rings out from a French sentry. The distinctive red jackets of the English regiment advance on the French encampment. Both sides rush to gain the upper hand, musket shots ringing out and men falling as the English line is breached by the French cavalry.

Then a French officer is de-horsed, and as he runs to his own men he’s cut down inches from safety by an English cavalryman’s sabre across his back. There’s an almighty explosion as a cannon belches a cloud of smoke. A well-drilled cannon crew is feeding the muzzle and delivering hell into the advancing 135

French. The wounded fall and are either rescued by comrades or bayoneted by the English . . .  Welcome to Waterloo—Lithgow style. Meet the members of the Napoleonic Reenactors group who have gathered for the popular Ironfest held annually in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. And say hello to gun crew number two’s Private La Trene (AKA Wes) and his original six-pound 1820 naval carronade. It’s quite a show—150 bodies in full battle dress, period weapons and kit, including infantry, cavalry and artillery, all converging on a football field in a kind of controlled chaos with plenty of colour and movement and, thanks to Wes and his cannon, a blanket of smoke and noise. This is just one of dozens of events Wes and his group attend each year—you may find them being the French or the Rum Corp, but they’re happiest as First Fleeters. ‘We are known as The NSW Corp of Marines, a not-for-profit group of like-minded, 136  Big Boys’ Toys

black-powder-loving early-Australian-history devotees who enjoy educating people by living out history,’ Wes explains. He is usually found as Corporal Alexander Anderson, one of the First Fleet marines, and he cuts a dashing figure in his authentic red and white woollen uniform. Wes had three ancestors who were convicts on the First Fleet and who eventually settled in ‘Hobart Town’. The sight of their descendant (7th generation) in the uniform of the despised ‘lobsters’ would make them turn in their grave. Another performance, a few months later at Sydney’s Garden Island Navy Base during Navy Week, begins with a well-orchestrated musket drill and firing, and then the gun crew moves on to the ceremonial firing of the carronade (which is fitting considering the weapon’s original naval pedigree). Wes, as Gunner Sergeant, barks out the orders with military precision. The only thing missing is a 6-pound cannonball, which is replaced by a much less destructive fistful of damp

The cannon is right at home at Garden Island, where the commander of the base gets to do the honours

cotton waste (rolled up damp newspaper is also good but tends to leave burning bits of paper everywhere). The commander of the base is invited to ignite the charge and whumph! she bursts into life with a bang,

and more smoke than you could possibly imagine. Wes says that for every two ounces of powder you get 44 gallons of gas, and he’s put in what looks like enough powder to fill a small thermos flask. Battle hardened  137

Wes designed a special trailer to transport the gun and its carriage and it must make quite an eye-catching cargo out on the street. In fact if you were travelling behind it with the barrel pointing at your windscreen, you may well feel uncomfortable enough to change lanes! If you needed someone with credentials for this sort of thing, you’d be hard pressed to better Wes. Hunting with slug guns and shot guns as a kid on his grandparents’ farm, and pretend-hunting with historic firearms ever since, has given him the experience. A cupboard full of uniforms and colonial accoutrements gives him the look. Not one but three direct ancestors on the First Fleet gives him the lineage, and a Commissioner’s Cannon Permit gives him the right. Not

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that you need all these things to become a successful re-enactor—a love of history is enough to get you started, and hard-core blokes like Wes can do the rest. Wes identifies the pirate movies he loved as a kid as setting him on course, but he’s also sure he wouldn’t have got into it without his brother’s influence. ‘Buying the carronade with my brother and a mate called Andy in 1990 was a good move as it got us more involved and gave us a great new prop to add to our re-enacting.’ Wes sums up the appeal: ‘At the end of the day, if it’s been a good one, your ears are ringing, you’ve got black soot all over your face, your clothes smell of rotten eggs and your smile is so wide that, if you were wearing lipstick, it’d be all over your ears.’

The carronade cannon

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he carronade is a short cast-iron cannon developed for the Royal Navy by the Carron Company of Scotland in the 1770s. It was used until the 1860s. The idea of a carronade is that it can be easily loaded on a kind of timber ‘ironing board’ structure. It was typically mounted on a sliding gun carriage, and elevation was achieved with a turn screw, rather than the quoins (wooden wedges) usual for naval guns. A six-pound ball fired at close range could punch a hole through 18 inches of solid timber. It was like the Swiss Army knife of artillery of the era. The design and application meant you could fire into the backs of other ships. The kind of projectiles it fired reads like the list from a medieval toolshed—chains, split shot, musket balls, spiders (cannonballs fixed with sabre blades), rod shots (long rods), even cutlery was used to great and deadly effect. The carronade now with Wes was cast in 1820 and began life with the Royal Navy. Most carronades had finished their useful lives by the mid-to-late 1800s, and 95 percent were scrapped or ended up as landfill, or even roadside bollards. The only part of its history that is easy to confirm comes from the two broad arrows stamped into the barrel, one pointing forwards (meaning it had been commissioned) and another pointing backwards (meaning it had been decommissioned).

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Warhorse Bruce and his Centurion tank Big boy: Bruce Toy: Centurion Main Battle Tank, ARN 169043, radio call sign 1A in 1970 in South Vietnam Built by: Royal Ordinance Factory, Vickers Ltd, and Leyland Motors, England Engine: Rolls-Royce Meteor V12 petrol, 27 litre capacity Power: 650 hp, 20 pounder main gun (rendered inoperable in 1977) Top speed: 34 kph Size: 10.4 m long (with gun forward) × 3.01 m high 17 to 152 mm armour

Weight: 52 tonnes (laden) Date in service: 1952–1977 Value: $40,000 Other toys: ‘A second ex-Centurion Meteor V12 engine, a collection of vintage engineering machines and a couple of old trucks out the back of the shed’ First toy: ‘Dad had a transport business and he gave me a tin plate pedal car. I’ve always had some kind of wheels underneath me’

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rought-breaking storms turn Bruce’s freshly ploughed wheat paddock into the consistency of clotted cream. A nice situation for dramatic effect as Bruce throws back the giant door of his farm shed and rolls out his 50-tonne Main Battle Tank across the sodden rural landscape. Bruce’s

Centurion advances, turret circling menacingly, looking like it’s been brought to life from an old black and white newsreel or some northern European theatre of war from half a century ago. A tank would have to be one of the ultimate big boys’ toys, especially if, like Bruce, you have 141

Bruce standing in front of tank 1A, February 1970, Nui Dat Photo courtesy of Bruce Holt

A centurion moving through the Vietnamese jungle, 1970 Photo courtesy of Bruce Holt

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first-hand knowledge of how these monsters work from a year on the job as a tank mechanic in the thick of the Vietnam War—and you have a few hundred acres for manoeuvres. Like many ‘boys’ there came a time in Bruce’s life when he was ripe for a diversion from years as a family man and local mechanic, and he began thinking about something interesting to play with that would also have some relevance for him.The wholesale disposal of Centurion tanks in the late 1980s gave him the answer. Bruce says, ‘A Centurion is a war warrior in a mechanical sense and I thought it would be good to save one from the scrappers, particularly as I knew a bit about them.’ In 1989 Centurion No. 169043, in good nick, with low mileage and a major rebuild in 1974, rolled onto his property ready for its next tour of duty, which was going to be about as far away from a battle zone as you could get. The uncanny thing about this particular tank—something Bruce only discovered a

long while after he’d installed it in his farm shed—is that it was one of the Centurions he’d actually worked on as an ‘A’ vehicle mechanic in the Australian Army during the Vietnam War. Back in the war he’d had a few slides taken of himself in front of a tank he was working on. In 2002 a book came out called Australian Centurions in Vietnam (by Shane Lovell) and something twigged for Bruce: ‘I searched through my slides to find that the tank I now owned was indeed the one we worked on in 1970 at 106 Field Workshop in Nui Dat.’ The Centurions in Vietnam played a vital role and proved to be more effective in jungle warfare than many in the army expected, considering they were made for European conditions. In July 1970 Bruce was posted to a squadron as part of a RAEME (Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) detachment (LAD) of A Squadron, First Armoured Regiment. The Australians kept their tanks maintained in the field by a Battle hardened  143

crew of tradesmen with their own kitted-out armoured personnel carriers and Armoured Recovery Vehicles, that were attached to a troop of four tanks. Bruce was commander of a crew of three—himself, a driver (mechanic) and an electrician.The tanks would be ‘outside the wire’ of Nui Dat for up to six weeks on operations around Phuoc Tuy Province. This is where Bruce began to appreciate the qualities of these machines: ‘The Centurions were an impressive vehicle, not very easy to work on but incredibly robust and powerful. I took a real shine to them.’ These days Bruce keeps his tank in good working order, but has kept the original 1977 Olive drab paint and equipment for authenticity. He’s taken the tank on the odd outing to local events, such as fundraising days, and is always

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amazed at the reaction: ‘People stare in awe at its impressive bulk, and kids crawl all over it.’ Sharing his knowledge and talents with the public, and even the occasional fellow Vietnam vet, is a treat for Bruce. He loves to show how this great machine can still perform—albeit without the threat of a landmine or rocket propelled grenade. A tour of duty around the farm, even at three litres a minute, is a permissible indulgence as, according to Bruce, ‘it gives you a chance to clean out the cobwebs’. Seeing him trundle up the lane to get the mail in this unlikely transport is a sight for sore eyes for his friends and neighbours, who agree that being a heroic veteran of the battlefield in retirement, with Bruce to care for you, is about the best outcome a weary warrior could ever hope for.

A tank for all seasons

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he Centurion tank, designed at the end of World War Two, proved itself to be one of the best tanks in history. Many variations and modifications were made during a career that covered many conflicts, such as Korea, Suez, Vietnam and the Middle East, and it was a key ingredient for more than 17 armies around the world. It’s one of the longest-serving designs of all time. All up, the Australian Army had about 140 Centurions in service from 1952 until they were phased out in 1977. They served with distinction, especially when put to trial in the paddy fields and jungles of Vietnam from 1968 to 1971. About half were damaged by mines or rocket propelled grenades. It’s estimated that about 80 Centurion tanks survive in museums or in private hands today, but it’s not likely that many are in as good order as Bruce’s 169043. Battle hardened  145

Air Force of One Charlie’s personal jet fighter Big boy: Charlie Toy: Jet fighter Description: L39C (Albatross) jet fighter aircraft, serial no 232155 Key info: Progress/Ivchenko AI-25TL twin-shaft turbofan Built by: Aero Vodochody—Czechoslovakia Power: ‘16.9 kN or 3792 lb of thrust, which equates to around 3000 hp’ Top speed: 750 kph

Max take-off weight: 5600 kg Range: 1000 km Size: 12.13 m long, 4.77 m high, 9.46 m wingspan Date in service: 1982–2003, Ukrainian Air Force Value: $350,000 First toy: ‘Hornby HO train set, but couldn’t keep off Dad’s tractor’ Other toys: 1950 De Havilland Australia ex-Qantas ‘Drover’ 1942 Tiger Moth

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hen a boy has been dreaming of a toy for years, how appropriate that when he eventually ‘scores’, it arrives on his doorstep just like a huge present—in a box, as a kit, in pieces! That’s how Charlie and his mates received their jet fighter when they ordered it from the Ukraine back in 2004. Just as well Charlie’s a licensed aircraft maintenance engineer, because the

L39 jet kit presented the same problems most of us face when assembling a piece of flatpack furniture. Even though we don’t expect to fly our cupboard at half the speed of sound, we can appreciate why it might take Charlie more than two years to reassemble it at his maintenance facility, Jet Chek, at Bathurst. Charlie and his friends Jeff and Leon, partners in the jet with him, have been around 147

Photo courtesy of Charlie Cmilleri

warbirds and vintage aircraft for years, so when Jeff procured an L29 a few years back (an earlier model jet from the same company), Charlie restored it for him and they became jet-powered devotees. Naturally they always aspired to the next model up, so when Jeff got an offer he couldn’t refuse to sell the L29 they made plans to buy an L39. ‘It was simply like upgrading from an old-model Commodore to a later model,’ says Jeff, making the trade in ex-military fighter jets seem as easy as going to a used car lot. When they did finally track one down as surplus stock from the Ukrainian Air 148  Big Boys’ Toys

Force it came to them in a 40-foot container via South Africa and Sydney before arriving at Charlie’s purpose-built hangar. Now their jet is finally airworthy they’ve been busy getting their hours up under the tutelage of instructor Trevor Murton. At 700 litres of Jet A-1 fuel an hour it’s not the cheapest toy to run, but there are some seriously worthwhile aspects, as Jeff describes: ‘The biggest impact is sitting in the cockpit. It’s like you’re in a bubble, you’ve got great visibility, and just the thought that you are operating a military aircraft is a buzz.’ It has

a high roll rate (being able to turn it from side to side or roll right over), and it’s really manoeuvrable. It’s like a sports aeroplane, and a fast jet rolled into one. The ‘G’ force is what most people associate with aeronautical aerobatics, but high-speed jets add a whole new dimension, says Charlie: ‘If you’re doing a loop, your entry speed might be 320 knots [590 kph] and you might be holding four Gs for about half a minute to complete the one-mile diameter loop. When you hit six Gs you begin to black out, vision first. That’s about the limit, but it’s stressed for eight Gs.’ There is a limit on how low you can go but if, like Charlie, you’re near a mountainous area then the 1500-foot horizontal elevation and the 500-foot vertical limits are close enough to give you a real thrill as the canyons and cliffs of the mountains whiz by. ‘It’s the clouds that really give away your speed,’ Charlie enthuses. ‘You may take a minute to get to a big cloud and then you zip through it in a couple of seconds.’

The L39 is the most popular jet warplane in the world, with over 300 private ones believed to be actively flying in the US alone, not to mention the couple of thousand still in active service in over 30 airforces. Even though Charlie loves the older vintage planes, he’s moved on to the modern age. ‘For a typical World War Two fighter you might pay a million or two plus these days, and with insurances on top of that you need to be seriously rich.’ The L39 seemed a practical proposition—although they have a relatively high fuel consumption they do have manageable operating costs and it’s pretty easy to get spare parts. ‘What’s more, I really liked the idea of flying a modern jet,’ Charlie says. ‘The old piston engine may have all that history, the smell of oil, leather, sweat and fear, but this is a modern fighter with all the latest technology and power. It’s like the Formula One of aircraft.’ Charlie was an engine fitter with the air force for 21 years and spent weekends and Battle hardened  149

Charlie with his first plane, the 1942 Tiger Moth

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holidays learning to fly. The air force also paid for his commercial training after he left, so he was in a good position to begin to meld his love of flying with a decent income, allowing him to achieve the dream—collecting, restoring and taking off in some pretty special aircraft. His first was a Tiger Moth, which he bought in 1995 and completely restored over a year. Since then his fleet has grown, with the L39 now taking pride of place in the hangar. Ironically his kids, both in their twenties, are into cars not planes, but his wife, Julie, can be coaxed aboard for a joy flight when he promises ‘not to go too crazy’. ‘I think I love seeing it take off and flying as much as I do being in it,’ says Charlie. ‘Either way I don’t plan to get bored with it.’ Not much chance of that. If you ever got bored with having an L39 jet, you’d have to be bored with life!

The much-vaunted L39

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he history of the Czechoslovakian L39 (Albatross) goes back to just after World War One, when the AERO aircraft factory was established in Prague. The company began rebuilding surplus warplanes and went on to build numerous and various commercial and military planes, including more than 3500 MiG aircraft in the 1950s and 1960s. Also in the sixties the company produced the L29 (Delfin), which became the standard training aircraft for the Warsaw Pact countries. The L39 was the successor to the extremely successful L29, with the prototypes taking to the air in 1968 and full-scale production beginning in 1972. It quickly gained a reputation for reliability and serviceability, and was ultimately taken up by more than 30 airforces around the world. Used for basic and advanced pilot training, including weapons delivery and light attack combat missions, it has a 99.6 percent success rate probability on a one-hour sortie and its safety record, combined with its unique built-in features, makes the aircraft highly cost-effective for its mission. More than 2800 L39s were built and still serve with airforces around the world. It is the most widely used jet trainer in the world and is also, as Charlie will attest, the world’s most popular recreational jet warplane.

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A Knight’s Tale James’s medieval suit of armour Big boy: James Toy: Full suit of medieval armour Built by: Alex Schreibner, Talerwin Forge, Rylstone Power: ‘One manpower!’ Top speed: 8 mph Weight: 47 kg, fully loaded Size: 7' fully suited

Date in service: 2003 Value: $9000 First toy: ‘Big yellow dump truck’ Other toys: ‘Couple of extra swords, armies of medieval model soldiers, a ton of books on . . . you guessed it, the medieval era’

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everal members of the group are already ‘in harness’ when James backs his ute into a spot close to the ‘field’ (a flat clearing, traditionally used for jousting, which just happens to be the back paddock behind a friend’s house). In the ute he has a number of plastic tubs overflowing with piles of what look like off-cuts from a sheet metal shop. At first glance you’d think James was on his way to see the scrap metal dealer, but it’s apparent as he begins the transformation Opposite: James with the core Condottiere group

from mild-mannered IT guy to medieval knight that this hardened-steel jigsaw puzzle is not only a toy to be worn with great effect, but one that may well save your life in battle. After almost an hour of buckling up, James strides forth, a seven-foot tower of gleaming tin plate ready for action, displaying from head to toe the awesome craftsmanship employed by James’s brilliant blacksmith friend and armourer, Alex. 153

James is based in southern Queensland where he is part of a group called ‘the Condottiere’ (medieval Italian mercenaries). The members all have day jobs and live in ordinary Aussie homes. It’s just that occasionally, in some cases as often as possible, they like to 154  Big Boys’ Toys

live a 14th-century existence. A day of reenacting begins with erecting tents and setting out furniture and props, all meticulously made by the group using images from manuscripts of the day. Wives and kids are all in on the act, in character and costume. Dave, a fellow knight, says, ‘My whole family makes a weekend of it . . .researching the era is half the fun.’ It appears that the attention to detail is paramount in helping to create the magic, and when the spell works the gear they’ve made or commissioned acts as a kind of time machine bringing an illusive past tangibly close. James adds, ‘The ideal situation is when we’re at one of the big two-day encampments and you’re up just before dawn to soak up the atmosphere. Fires are smoking, dogs and horses mill around and people are wandering around in character, so you just sit there for ages absorbing the scene, pretending you’re really there. That’s until the first plane of the day flies over.’ The piece de resistance for any committed medieval re-enactor has to be the suit of

armour, as it represents the ultimate status symbol of the time. ‘These guys were the professional sports stars of the day and it was nothing to share the majority of your wealth between your horse and your suit of armour,’ says a very authentic-looking Tony, with his shoulder-length hair and Tom Selleck (or should that be Black Prince) to-die-for moustache. ‘They were the billionaires of the day so you wanted to make an impression, and if you got caught you could ransom yourself back, especially with a knock-out suit of armour in the kit.’ James pinpoints the late 1300s as a golden age, after the Crusades and before gunpowder and guns changed the rules. ‘There’s a lot of maille [chainmail] in the armour before this time and afterwards it becomes overly decorative and not so functional. [This era’s armour] has the best blend of form and function—[it] is classy, uncluttered, beautiful.’ When it came to commissioning a suit for himself, James knew what he wanted.

He’d been fascinated in the era since his youth, but when he saw ‘a particularly good group re-enacting the 14th century’ he was destined to join their ranks. ‘I heard about this professional armourer called Alex and I showed him a lot of illustrations of what I wanted. I asked him to take all the different elements I’d gathered and put them into something that would make it work. The suit came to me one piece at a time, breastplate first. I was astounded. Every couple of months another piece would arrive; it was like having an ongoing birthday. As the suit came together I couldn’t be happier. Alex is a genius.’ ‘Ironically Queensland has more re-enactors than anywhere else but with 40-odd kilos of thick woollens and metal plate it’s a passion better suited to Tasmania,’ says Tony as he practises a sword routine with Dave. ‘I got into it because I really wanted to hit other blokes with a big lump of steel.’ Laughs all round, but deep down you get the feeling he does really mean it. Battle hardened  155

A Duck to Water Dave’s amphibious army duck Big boy: Dave Toy: DUKW, ‘Army duck’ Description: Six-wheel amphibious truck Power: GMC six-cylinder 269 cid 91.5 hp Top speed: 80 kph land, 10 kph water Weight: 5 tons Size: 9.3 m long, 2.4 wide and 2.6 high Date in service: 1943 Value: ‘A rough one sold on eBay not so long back for $60,000’

First toy: Pressed metal A model Ford pedal car—‘and I wish I still had it as it’s probably worth more than all the other crap I’ve kept!’ Other toys: ‘About 15 other rare and interesting World War Two vehicles and armour, including 2 lb attack carrier, M2 half-track, Bren Gun carrier, WC 54 ambulance, trucks, trailers and a couple of sheds full of assorted bits and pieces’

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ven though Dave’s fascination with World War Two stuff has been with him since he was using training wheels, he certainly didn’t start out with a vision of one day having enough old military vehicles to mount a convincing re-enactment of the D-Day landings. The starting point came in his early twenties when he was doing some

building work on an old pub and there, in a derelict shed out the back, was an original World War Two jeep. A small wad of cash was enough to convince the publican to part with it and Dave’s love affair with the wheels of war was on a roll. Whilst this was a serendipitous moment that many would appreciate, most wouldn’t follow it up with 157

a lifetime of collecting and restoring dozens of other rare war machines. And out of all of his machines, the ‘duck’ is his pride and joy. ‘They all have their own character and history but when it comes to getting out and about you can’t beat the duck for sheer versatility,’ he says. Dave’s duck came to the Australian Army from the US in 1943 but never saw active service and was sold by army disposals in Bandianna in the 1960s. It’s been through three owners since then but when Dave got the duck it was still in pretty good nick. Dave and his mates always take a couple of weeks off around Easter each year to join the military vehicle rally at Corowa on the Murray River, the largest rally of its kind in Australia. Dave says, ‘A couple of years back we had a gathering of amphibious vehicles and even though there’s only about a dozen operational ducks in Australia we had three of them swimming in the Murray together, with a large number of the smaller jeep type 158  Big Boys’ Toys

amphibians as an escort.’ The site of this fleet of khaki army ducks cruising up the river with the crews all decked out in authentic garb would be enough for you to suspect that an invasion was imminent. That’s until you notice the on-board parties in full swing. Dave explains that he owns most of the gear in equal shares with various other mates, like John and Brian who are partners in the duck. ‘They love me because I’ve got the sheds to store them in and plenty of bush to roam around. I’ve also got access to a big deep river to play on. The best situation for “swimming” is a nice mild day, a core of three or four crew, the BBQ mounted on the deck, a couple of bottles of red wine and away we go.’ It takes about four hours to prepare for swimming and another six to eight hours afterwards to drain it and then a week to dry it out. ‘Of course in wartime they didn’t worry about that,’ says Dave, pointing out the seven hull plugs you have to screw in

really well—‘they’re the difference between sinking and swimming’. The duck also has a pump system that is connected to the drive shaft which acts automatically to keep water out of the hull and an on-board compressor that maintains four pounds pressure in the differentials so water doesn’t get inside them. ‘Nine times out of ten they have water in them anyway, just one of those things you have to keep an eye on,’ he adds. After an overnight battery charge the duck is ready for action. It takes no time for the big GMC six cylinder to fire up and have the tub on wheels rolling out of Dave’s shed and down to the purpose-built boat ramp at the bottom of his riverside property. Lined up next to all the other assembled ‘normal’ cars in the car park at the front of his house, Dave’s duck looks like a real fish out of water, but when swimming, 90 percent of the awkward bits are hidden underwater, so she

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does appear more like a flesh and blood duck gliding along the river. The duck is more like an ocean liner than a cabin cruiser however—as Dave says: ‘She handles like a brick with ears, you have to anticipate well in advance of where you want to go as it can take a good minute to turn her around.’ If there is a hitch then Dave has just the thing on hand. His ex-Vietnam War, 15-ton, Kaiser recovery truck is not just a pretty face, it’s the only thing capable of hauling the duck out of the river if the boys miss the high tide and get her stuck in the mud, as they’ve been known to do. And if there’s a bushfire, Dave is also well equipped with a string of ex-Vietnam War fire trucks. In fact, Dave can probably come up with a great rationale for owning just about every thing in his shed. But when you’re into big boys’ toys, who needs an excuse?

History of the ‘duck’

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he D (1942 design), U (utility), K (all-wheel drive), W(2 powered rear axles) commonly known as the ‘army duck’ proved itself of use to the army when an experimental model just happened to be in the vicinity of a patrol boat that had run aground in raging surf and was able to easily save the stranded crew. It had been designed within General Motors Corp during World War Two, based on a six wheel military truck with the addition of a water tight hull and a propeller. Initially rejected by the military it ended up in the front line of operations during the war, notably on the D-Day beaches of Normandy and also in the Pacific and North Africa. Over 21,000 were built, some of which ended up in Australia, and a few saw active service in Borneo. It was the first vehicle that allowed the driver to vary the tyre pressure from inside the cab and was renowned for its versatility which gave rise to a whole raft of other designs in the post-war period.

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Five

Purely for pleasure Some boys take their playtime very seriously and

go to extraordinary efforts, resulting in some pretty eccentric gear. Here’s what happens when boys go out of their way in the quest for toys that will enrich and entertain—revealing how satisfying it can be to have a unique toy that is just for fun.

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Railroad Baron Ian and his private mountain railway

Big boy: Ian Toy: Private railway Description: ‘1 km of 610 mm (2 ft) narrow gauge railway, with Motorail Simplex diesel loco, five carriages, four stations, town, workshop, etc, etc’ Locomotive builders: Dorman Long Track builders: Ian, Filippa, Colin, Jim, Bruce, Mick, and Steve Power: 54 hp Speed: 10 kph Weight: 3 tons

Date in service/first run: 1954 Value: ‘My mates would kill me if I sold it! Probably spent a couple of hundred K on it though’ First toy: ‘The knobs on Mum’s stove; it was like flying Sputnik. And I loved those clip-together trains you’d get in the corn flakes with the cut-out stations on the back of the box. Had a whole set of them once’ Other toys: ‘My house is a toy: a haunted Victorian restoration job. Also, still have the Triumph TR7 drop head coupe I got for my 21st!’

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his is a train story, but let’s get one thing straight at the start: Ian doesn’t play trains, he plays railways. Invitations to attend one of the themed parties at Ian and Filippa’s country estate are both welcome and intriguing. No matter what’s

on the agenda for these party weekends, you can guarantee that his full-scale mountainside railway will be at the centre of the festivities. Practical too, as its little loco and string of carriages efficiently transports the guests about a kilometre from the main house on the hill 165

to the junction at Mongalowe Station, where all the action is usually found. Ian and his wife Filippa own a cosy weekender high on a spur of the Great Dividing Range in central NSW. It had been their regular, laid back, city escape for a decade before an inspirational present from Filippa sparked something in Ian’s head, leading to the transformation of their rugged bush block. 166  Big Boys’ Toys

‘It was a video, one of those old black and white recruitment films the railways made in the 1940s, called The Up Road or something, and over a few beers with mates at my 35th birthday party we joked about our own home-made railway.’ The Mongalowe Station building is a cross between a movie set, a club room, a mess hall and an original 1940s station master’s office. Vintage posters extol the virtues of travelling across Australia by train, and on the shelves are stacks of old railway crockery, hand lamps, ledgers and original ticket racks full of old cardboard tickets. Capping off the scene are Ian and Filippa themselves, resplendent in their dark blue and gold-braided uniforms, worn as if they wouldn’t be seen in anything else when they’re ‘on duty’. ‘If you and your wife can survive surveying the path for a railway with a dumpy level and pole then you’ll get through anything,’ Ian says. Around the turned-leg desk in the station are Ian’s mates—the motley crew who act as

Jim, Col and Mick—the track gang—with Stationmaster Ian

gangers, drivers, signallers and refreshment room staff whenever and wherever they are needed. Ian’s main man is local retiree and fellow train tragic Col. ‘Col was like a Good Samaritan,’ Filippa gushes. ‘He came from nowhere after Ian had laid about 100 metres on his own.’ Col then chimes in with a rich British North Country accent, ‘When I first heard the local gossip about this crazy chap laying railway tracks I jumped in the truck and came to see what he was up to. I saw this fellow creosoting sleepers so I just hooked in and helped and I’ve been at it ever since.’ A bit of path building with a bulldozer is all fine and good—plenty of folk have done this sort of work on their weekenders—but Ian was planning a full-size railway. We’re talking semi-trailer loads of ballast, track, sleepers, rolling stock, buildings, workshops, signalling and communications. Hunting and gathering became Ian’s first obsession. Rail needs sleepers, so the toughest Aussie turpentine was sourced, and 2000 of them were 168  Big Boys’ Toys

delivered, treated and laid. Ian then welded up sets of junction points and built a 20-foot trestle bridge. When it came to rolling stock, Ian wrote to 27 sugar mills seeking redundant locomotives. ‘Twenty-six wrote back and said no, but one mill had a pair of old three-tonners, just the right size for our track, and they only wanted scrap value for them [$200]—and then it was around $2K to transport them and another $2K to get one going.The carriages we basically built by hand out of recycled building material and cane railway running gear, complete with a set of old mini van seats Filippa’s dad rescued from a dump bin.’ Unlike most train loonies, Ian hasn’t always been a rail fan, but building his own railway has definitely got him more interested. As he says, his setup is big enough to play with but not big enough to be a nuisance. The beauty of this little railway is the way his train blends with the bush and weaves around the hillside, taking in the sites along the way.

His attention to detail is astounding and it’s truly awe-inspiring to think that such a complete set-up has been created on a limited budget—and only when time permitted. There’s no doubting it’s been a labour of love. Filippa, who’s an artist, likens it to a work of art: ‘This is like a giant canvas for

me and for Ian, who is usually office bound [he’s a corporate consultant]. It’s his creative outlet.’ Ian adds, ‘My mum says that if I’d had a train set as a kid I probably would’ve got over it.’ It’s lucky Ian’s folks did not indulge the boy, because look what the man’s done to make up for it!

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Not All Hot Air Burning rubber in Bill’s steam car Big boy: Bill Toy: Steam car Description: 1924 Doble E 11 Built by: Doble Steam Motors, California, USA Power: ‘About 120 brake hp at 900 rpm in factory tests. Probably from 60 to 80 on the road’ Top speed: ‘Manufacturers state 75 mph but 105 mph has been recorded’ Weight: About 2 tons Size: 142" wheel base. ‘Forgotten the overall length, but it’s a nasty thing to get into a Kmart car park’ Date service: 1924 Value: ‘Paid $55,000 for my Locomobile last year. A good

Stanley has been seen to go for $80,000. Goodness knows what the Doble’s worth’ First toy: ‘Dad made a push-along model steam loco for me out of an old Bakelite razor stand which looked like the famous ‘Mallard’. Still got it on my shelf at home’ Other toys: 1922 Stanley Steamer—‘my first car’ 1907 and 1916 Stanley Steamers 1900 Locomobile Steamer, ‘which looks like a buggy missing its horse’ 1907 White Steamer ‘I also have a pretty little steam launch, Anna Louise and a 1915 Detroit Electric, ‘the car driven by Grandma Duck in the Disney Comics’

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ome pretty weird and wonderful machines were concocted during the great age of steam, but one little-known, and virtually extinct, branch of the steam-powered family tree was the steam car. Over the years, Bill has

steadily gathered one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of these early ‘alternative energy’ cars, centred around his beloved Stanley and the incomparable Doble. Immaculately maintained and standing by for a spin at 171

a moment’s notice, they give the idea of a quiet country drive a whole new meaning. Rolling down the road in a steamer is a surreal experience much like being in a glider—the whistling wind and the tyres on the road are the only indication of speed (except when the burner fires up under the hood to cook the next batch of steam).There’s not even any clunky gear changing to contend with. Bill describes a common traffic situation: ‘The average car that sits next to you in the left lane at the lights thinks that they’re just going to get in across in front of you. Little do they know you’ve got one foot on the brake, you’ve got the throttle cracked open and you’ve got 600 pounds of steam pressure starting to push on the cylinders. As soon as the lights go green you take your foot off the brake, open the throttle full and the car takes off like a rubber band. Time after time I see the guy who thought he was going to get ahead of me end up blocking a lane of traffic as he sees me leap out in front of him 172  Big Boys’ Toys

like a scalded cat. After a few seconds of spectacular acceleration, you settle sedately back to about 60 kph.’ (It’s also worth mentioning that these things have no reverse gear—you simply reverse the valve timing in the engine. This means steam cars go just as fast in reverse as forwards, a point that’s not often appreciated, and rarely tested!) A visit to Bill’s garage in the middle of Sydney’s CBD is a real treat. The rollerdoor of his Federation-era building reveals the most recent additions to his fleet, including a 1900 Locomobile Steamer and a 1915 Detroit electric car. Bill says: ‘Dad would take me to the live steam model railway gatherings and of course there were also steam locomotives to be seen everywhere, so I was surrounded by these hot, hissing monsters. I was hooked from an early age and always thought how wonderful it would be to have a steam car.’ Bill had just finished university and had his first job as a patent attorney when he heard

about a 1922 Stanley for sale. ‘It wasn’t a goer so I managed to pick it up for $9500, which was about all I had at the time. A few weeks later I’d cleaned it out, fiddled around with a few things and got it going.’ Stanley is still with him but has been somewhat upstaged since sharing the garage with the holy grail of steam cars, the mighty Doble. Bill explains that his 1924 Doble is terrific because you switch it on and it’s ready to go in 90 seconds. ‘You can approach the car in clean clothes. You don’t have to get under it with a primus torch to light it. It’s very hi-tech for the era and has a great electrical system to monitor the controls.’ Lifting the floor panel under the back seat reveals the engine. Lying flat is a sleek conglom­ eration of rods, links and cylinders look­ing like the robotic arms of an oversized Terminator. Bill points out the features of its four-cylinder compound engine and sums up by saying, ‘It’s an extraordinarily efficient engine, running at 600–700 psi, smooth, quiet, powerful,

The ultimate alternate energy vehicle from the 1920s—the Doble steam car in its element ‘on the road’ Photo courtesy of Bill Lloyd

no gears, no clutch, tremendous acceleration . . . and it’s very comfortable to ride in.’ It’s heart-warming to think there have always been alternatives to the ubiquitous internal combustion engine. As Bill’s priceless Doble eases onto the street it’s clear that having a brace of veteran alternate energy cars at your disposal is not only better for the planet—it’s good for your soul. Purely for pleasure  173

The steam car

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t wasn’t until the dawn of the 20th century that the first marketable steam car appeared. The Locomobile Company manufactured several thousand of its ‘Runabout’ models in the period 1899–1905. In the US in 1902, 485 of 909 new car registrations were steamers, and many new companies were launched to satisfy a growing demand. Thomas White offered his first car to the public in 1900 and went on to produce around 10,000 or so steam cars, more than any other maker at the time. Perhaps the best-known steam car was the Stanley Steamer, produced from 1896 to 1924. Between about 1899 and 1905, Stanley outsold all US brands of gasoline-powered cars, and was second only in sales to cars from Columbia Electric. In 1906 the land speed record was broken by a Stanley, which achieved 127 mph (203 kph). Abner Doble built his first car out of spare parts in 1909 while still at high school. In the 1920s he set out to build the ultimate steam car and everybody basically agrees he did it. The Doble brought with it many new technical advantages, such as an electrically controlled flash steam generator to heat a much smaller quantity of water, and an automatic boiler and burner which

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allowed the car to be started with the turn of a key and driven off in 90 seconds or less. In addition, the Doble managed to achieve 15 miles per gallon (18.8 litres/100 km) from a variety of fuels. Despite the Doble’s economy and power, the company failed due to the high cost of the cars. The chassis alone sold for US$6,000 in 1924 (probably about US$200,000 in today’s money) and your choice of body could add over 50 percent to that figure. It is also said that Doble was such a perfectionist that he was seldom willing to stop tinkering and actually release an automobile for sale. Doble only made 35 cars from 1922 to 1931, and out of the 15 survivors worldwide only a few are in good working order. Bill’s is one of them and the only one in Australia. Steam cars suffered stiff competition from advances in the internal combustion engine, namely self-starting mechanisms, automatic transmissions, fuel efficiencies and mass production by people like Henry Ford. By the beginning of the 1930s steam car production virtually ceased, and steam technology for passenger vehicle propulsion returned to an experimental status, where it remains today.

Purely for pleasure  175

Plain Sailing Sean’s vintage yacht, Maluka Big boy: Sean Toy: Maluka Description: Raised-deck, auxiliary, gaff-rigged, wooden sailing boat Power: 47 hp Nanni diesel engine Top speed: ‘Under sail she’s done 9.2 knots, reckon we can get her up to 10’ Weight: ‘7 tons when fully loaded (very heavy—same weight as my modern 20-metre boat)’ Size: 30' (9.1 m)—originally 28'

Date in service: 1932 Value: $300,000—‘not that I’d ever sell it’ First toy: ‘A bath toy boat—I remember as a kid sliding up and down in the bath and watching the stability of this toy tugboat. As it used to roll over, I ripped the deck off and took the funnel off and it was a much better thing’ Other toys: ‘A score of boats, mostly wooden, including Vagrant and the new record contender, Wotrocket. The list doesn’t end as they become part of the family’

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here’s no deviating from the fact that Sean is boat mad, but there is a paradox to his passion. On one hand he is completely devoted to historic wooden boats and on the other he’s attempting to smash the world speed sailing record in a vessel that he’s building which is akin to a rocket with sails, the Wotrocket! This isn’t such

a contrary approach when Sean explains his fascination with how things have been done before, and how he likes to tap into the accumulated wisdom of the years for inspiration and direction. After some years pursuing line honours in the Sydney to Hobart in maxi yachts, Sean had something of an epiphany. While he’d 177

achieved a couple of seconds and a third, the race was starting to lose its appeal. ‘One year, the engine basically had to run 24/7 with electric winches and canting keels doing all the work. After doing that trip I was disillusioned with the sport and I thought “I need to do something different, go back to my roots”.’ Sean’s a man of his word, and when the old 28-foot gaff-rigged Maluka was offered to him, he had his answer. Maluka’s rich history was a big part of her attraction—the fact that her original owners, the wealthy Clark brothers, had persevered against the odds to sail her to Hobart in 1936 was enough for Sean. He bought her, and swung all his resources into getting her seaworthy again in time for the next Sydney to Hobart. It took about 15,000 man hours to get her restored and ready for the race. When the starter’s gun was fired for the 2006 race, Maluka was there, as the oldest and smallest entrant. Sean had done the trip many times before and was expecting to slip under 178  Big Boys’ Toys

the radar, ‘[I thought] no-one’s gonna notice this lunatic going down in this little old gaff-rigged boat, but there were more people interested in me doing that than I ever imagined.’ Sean says it was probably the most foolish thing he’s ever done, setting sail with a crew of six mates, all of whom were his responsibility, in a boat that was a fraction the size of the others. But the first night at sea, ‘when maxis were breaking and pulling out, we were bobbing along like a cork, eating potatoes in foil and everything. It turned out to be a magical trip, and when they arrived about 400 people on the dock were cheering them on. ‘Maluka was pretty much a basket case when I bought her,’ says Sean. ‘After racing the maxis, my mates thought I had rocks in my head taking on Maluka. I just love it when someone says “you can’t do it”.’ Maluka was built from Huon pine, one of the most resilient and expensive boat building timbers in the world. But all timber basically

degrades and it needed to be completely stripped down and re-planked, with sections of the hull strengthened along the way. Sean and the team kept 95 percent of the Huon planking, used freshly milled spotted gum for the ribs (because it stays supple when it’s steamed for bending) and replaced all the copper fasteners. They made the cabin a bit longer, partially to fulfil the Sydney to Hobart rules, but also because Sean wanted to do longer cruises. He also needed to strengthen her for some extended Southern Ocean cruising, so he sheathed the outside with fibreglass and used glue in a few areas where it wouldn’t have been traditionally used. With new teak and cedar to complete the deck and internal fit-out, Maluka is now beautiful and strong. Boating has ‘sort of always been in the blood, but I never thought I’d make my living or be as closely connected as I am,’ says Sean. ‘I was only happy when I was around boats. At school I wanted to be a midshipman but Purely for pleasure  179

it just didn’t work—now my biggest customer is the navy!’ He owns a shipbuilding, maintenance and repair company and likes to think that now, in his mid-forties, he can follow his passions. ‘As much as I collect the boats, I collect the stories and the people behind them,’ he says, referring to a list of characters and mates who have inspired him, from yachting legend and friend Bill Gale (whose dad, Cliff, designed Maluka) to Captain Cook and the Clark brothers. If our job is to be the custodians of the accumulated wisdom of the ages, then Sean is doing a mighty job.

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A salty tale

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aluka was designed by Cliff Gale as an ocean voyager in 1932 and built by Bill Fisher for the ‘Lucky Clarks’—brothers George and William—who came from the land but got hooked on sailing. Even though it was double the cost, Huon pine was used on the hull and they even supplied a cedar log from their own property for the internal fit-out. Their first voyage in Maluka was to Cooktown in 1934, then they set off to sail to Hobart in 1935 but were washed ashore in a storm. Determined not to give up on their little craft, they salvaged her, returned her to Sydney and repaired her for their second attempt at the voyage to Hobart a year later, which was successful. The Clarks sold Maluka a few years later and she went through a number of owners before her complete restoration in 2006 at the hands of shipwright Gary Ferres and the apprentices Maluka in full sail on Sydney Harbour in the 1930s when owned at the Noakes boat and shipyard. by ‘the Lucky Clarkes’ Photo courtesy of Warwick Thomson Purely for pleasure  181

Rodding Along Geoff and his Ford ‘A’ hot rod Big boy: Geoff Toy: Hot rod (and matching caravan) Description: 1928 Ford A model roadster Engine: V8 Chevy 327 cu" Power: 330 hp Speed: ‘12–13 seconds over the quarter mile—approx 100 mph. Top speed? You wouldn’t be silly enough to find out!’

Weight: 980 kg Date in service/first run: 2005 Value: $55,000 First toy: ‘Heaps of Hot Wheels, then on to slot cars’ Other toys: ‘A shed full of automobilia’

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conformity of the regular car. Hot they may be, but a good ‘rod’ is also way cool. This is part of the attraction for more than 10,000 active participants around Australia who, like Geoff, just love rodding. Before you begin expressing yourself, you’d better start by defining exactly what side of the fence you sit. Are you a traditional rodder, a rat rodder, or a street rodder? Are you into customs, classics, dragsters, lowriders, muscle

odern man’s infatuation with the automobile is expressed in mindblowing variety, but almost nothing symbolises the car as a toy as much as the hot rod. Traditionally hand-made from whatever’s lying around, they’re built for speed and effect.The challenge is to make a machine with an in-your-face, dare-to-be-different, kick-arse character—an extension of one’s personality—that snubs at the suit-and-tie 183

or some other permutation of a vehicle that’s been modified? Because if the visual elements of your creation are not pre-1948 then, technically speaking, your machine is not a hot rod. If you’re true to tradition, then take a leaf out of Geoff ’s book. Get hold of a model ‘A’ Ford body, lower the axles, and put in a new V8 motor, flash upholstery, fat tyres and a big diff. Then give it a schmick bright yellow paint job and you’ll be a full-on hot rodder. Go the next step and attach a purpose-built, matching-character tear-drop shaped caravan on the back and then really watch the heads turn. It’s fun having a cruise around with Geoff—the combo of great looks and a powerful engine is intoxicating and it’s always good to be able to leave everyone else behind at the lights. Of course racing your hot rod on public roads is not on, but there are plenty of legal places you can let it rip when you want to, and seeing Geoff ’s machine disappear in a cloud of 184  Big Boys’ Toys

Everything you need is in the back, including the staff

smoke is a site to make a grown man grin like a five-year-old. Geoff has been hotting up cars since his teens—the golden age of the Holden Torana rebuilds. Nowadays with a family to consider, and a very involved wife, Della, and kids Brad and Jamie-Lee, the interest has evolved—hence the addition of the caravan. An artistic statement in its own right, it has a double bed and storage, and the back pops

open to reveal a fully equipped retro kitchen that provides all the comforts of home on the many road trips they take as a family in their ultimate cruising machine. The great thing with rodding, as Geoff points out, is that anybody with an interest in mechanics, a bit of imagination and a good welder can do it. ‘There are blokes in my club who can turn their hand to anything.

You mention you’re knocking up a car and you’re bound to have a team of willing helpers on board. The blokes are always around with plenty of great ideas, and have a real knack for getting me to spend all my money!’ The hunting ground for the raw material for most hot rod construction is the local swap meet, where stacks of so-called ‘vintage tin’ is on offer. It’s also where you get to see what happens to a pile of rusty bits and pieces in the hands of an inspired rodder. If you’re thinking of building your own rod, you have to do it by the book. Each stage of construction has to be approved by the Australian Street Rod Federation—just like building a house. Unless you’ve had it inspected and approved, you won’t be able to get it registered. One of the interesting things about rodding is that no two machines are the same, and the challenge for that point of difference, while still passing inspection, is a hallmark of this mechanically creative endeavour. Purely for pleasure  185

Geoff ’s currently fantasising about his next construction, which might be in the same theme—‘maybe a Model “A” Tudor’ (a sort of two-door station wagon), he says thoughtfully—but the real focus is on the next road trip, which will take Geoff and his family half way across Australia in their beloved rod and 186  Big Boys’ Toys

van to attend the country’s premier rodding event, the ‘Nationals’. As they travel, mates will join them in a convoy, ultimately connecting with more than a thousand others at the venue. If Geoff needs inspiration for this next project, then being in the same place with a thousand other unique cars, may be just the thing.

Hot rod history

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n the 1930s a new branch of the motor sport family tree began when the first hot rodders raced modified machines on the salt lakes of California. The term was coined at this time, and might refer to the beefing up of the push rods inside the engine, or is perhaps a shortening of the term ‘hot roadster’—no-one’s sure. Either way, after World War Two things really hotted up, so to speak. Soldiers returning from the war with mechanical skills, time and cash started to modify old jalopies, seeking speed and cool on the many abandoned airfields that proved to be brilliant for the one-mile races that defined the early rules of engagement (although this distance varied). Hot rodding also gained momentum in Australia in the 1950s, with the first club, the Southern Hot Rod Club, forming in 1956. The golden days of the 1950s and 1960s also saw a new kind of modified vehicle hit the scene as a direct offshoot of the hot rod—the dragster, where the engines and the speeds just got bigger and bigger.

Purely for pleasure  187

Crocodile Rock Phil’s custom chopper, Croc Bike Big boy: Phil Toy: Croc Bike Description: Custom-made ‘crocodile’ chopper motorbike Engine: Ultima 10 cu"—7" belt drive Power: 135 hp Speed: ‘Cruising speed 100 kph. Top speed? It’d be possible to do 300 kph but you wouldn’t want to try it’ Weight: 226.80 kg

Size: 3 m long Date in service: 2005 Value: $80,000 First toy: ‘Tin plate fire truck, the kind you could ride on’ Other toys: 2007 model Street Bob custom built ‘Lots of other crazy bikes, like ‘Lethal Weapon’ and ’Fire and Ice’

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tightly packed crowd, obscuring whatever it is they’re avidly look ing at, is irresistible. You just have to push in to see what the fuss is about. This mob, at popular classic car and music festival Wintersun, at Coolangatta, is gawking at a most unusual motorbike.The owner is Phil and he’s happy to show it to anyone who’s keen. In fact, his custom-made Croc Bike deserves an

up-close-and-personal, one-on-one inspection. It is, no kidding, the wildest thing on two wheels you’ll ever see—Easy Rider meets Crocodile Dundee—a high-performance chopper that would be at home in the swamps of Kakadu or on the film set of Mad Max 5. The time line of Phil’s toys reads like the recent history of the motorbike in popular culture. In his early teens his first bikes were 189

little ‘grass cutters’. Then at 17 his first licensed bike was a Suzuki 250, followed at 18 by a 350 Yamaha, at 20 a 750 Honda, at 22 a 950 Kwakka, leading to a 1950 Panhead, rigid-springer Harley at the age of 24. It was his next Harley four years later that was the one he completely rebuilt into Comet, marking the next phase in a motorbike obsession that has seen him churn through over more than 70 bikes for business and pleasure. Phil was over the moon when Comet made the cover of Live To Ride magazine under the title ‘Queensland Blasts Off ’. He casually adds, ‘I’ve had over 20 covers since then.’ It’s no wonder when you see the kind of far-out choppers Phil masterminds. His original idea was to make a bike with a difference, just for fun, in his spare time from his job with the railways. The result was a business, the appropriately named Kingpin Choppers, that specialises in hand-made, one-off big boys’ toys that you won’t find anywhere else. 190  Big Boys’ Toys

Croc Bike is a particular favourite with Phil because it taps into the Aussie character that is both larrikin and dangerous. Out of the handlebars looms the Croc’s threatening head (made from beaten steel), teeth bared and ready to bite. The orange eyes are lights, adding to the effect. All over the bike the theme continues with a profusion of handforged, hand-cast and hand-moulded crocodile motifs made from alloy and steel, and built into the frame and the workings. Even the footrests are individually cast crocodile claws. The bike has a high-powered Ultima engine providing plenty of pick-up at the lights if you want to give the drop to the turkeys in their family sedans who are gawking at you. ‘It was a lady who suggested the idea of a crocodile bike at a motorshow, and it really got to me,’ says Phil as he scratches around his atmospheric workshop to locate the original drawing. ‘I thought it would be great. I could see it—the croc head, the little feet, the spikes and scales—so I sat down with my

Phil's workshop

Castings of all kinds litter the workshop

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artist mate “Little Mick”, who’s one of the best tattooists in the world, and over a few beers one Sunday afternoon he drew it and that was our prototype.’ The drawing is a great fantasy art piece in its own right, but more power to Phil for turning it into a fully functional chopper.What’s even more amazing is that it was built over eight days at the Brisbane Motor Show in 2005 to an enraptured audience, who watched it come together and could refer to Little Mick’s drawing there on the stand as their blueprint. ‘The Yanks wanted $5K just to build the outer cover of the belt drive (a croc head with flames), so we fired up the milling machine and did it ourselves. The front end, the handlebars, the lot—it’s ours,’ he says proudly as he mounts the bike for a spin around the block. Looking over all the trophies on the shelf in the workshop you’ll see that Croc Bike has won heaps of awards, including Top Bike of Show in Brisbane in 2007. But it’s not alone. His fiery-looking Lethal Weapon was awarded

Number One Bike in Australia and Top Custom Chopper of Show at the National Awards at Bike Week on the Gold Coast in 2006.

If having a motorbike is food for a big boy’s soul, then Phil is a gourmet chef whose croc bike is a machine you can really feast on.

The original drawing for Phil's custom bike Courtesy of Kingpin Choppers

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It’s a Monster Smash Clive and his monster truck, Outback Thunda Big boy: Clive Toy: Outback Thunda Description: 3D Special Moulded Shaped (Monster Truck) Engine: 510 Big Block Supercharged Chevy Power: 1500 hp Top speed: 95 kph Weight: 5 tons Size: 3.7 m wide, 4.3 m high

Date in service: 2003 Value: $200,000 First toy: ‘A couple of teddies that Mum made up using the team colours of Buston and Kings Lynn, (my Dad’s racing teams)’ Other toys: ‘Nine other trucks, a Strikemaster jet, water screens, jet cars, stunt cars—you name it!’

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unning amok in a truck five times the size of the average family car would have to be the ultimate big boy dream. What Clive, his teenage sons Billy and Jaye, and their team get to do on a regular basis is exhilarating and wild in the extreme— using the biggest four-wheel toys this side of an open-cut iron ore mine. To watch these two-hundred-thousand-dollar beasts put through their paces is truly impresPhoto opposite by Billie Fairclough

sive and gains plenty of admiration (and a touch of envy) from onlookers, especially considering the boys, who are up for anything their dad can do, are not even old enough to have their driving licences yet. Clive has a warehouse full of toys, and celebrates his passion for the theatrical side of playtime by rolling out his really big, noisy, hot and powerful toys whenever he can. He’s a guy who loves speed and big machines, but 195

he’s also a showman. Hence the monster truck shows he puts together, which feature not only his beloved Outback Thunda monster truck (the first of its kind in Australia) but whatever else he can muster, including a jet van that can melt a car in a few minutes flat, and a fire-breathing mechanical dinosaur. Clive’s father rode speedway for over twenty years in the UK and represented England on six occasions, at a time when the sport of speedway racing was second only to soccer in popularity. When Clive was 13, the family moved from England to South Africa and Clive and his brother Craig became speedway racers. As Clive recalls, ‘We were both racing in the seventies. My brother was a brilliant racer, really focused on his sport and a far superior rider, but I found nightclubs and fireworks. Craig was killed in a freak speedway accident at Peterborough Speedway in 1983 and that shook me up a bit, so I concentrated on my firework shows and got heavily into the promoting side of things. By 196  Big Boys’ Toys

the late 1980s I was the youngest speedway promoter in Australia.’ Clive was always on the hunt for new toys to add to his shows, and in the late 1990s basic models of oversized demonstration trucks were starting to appear at various outdoor events, and they caught his eye. ‘An old mate of mine had built a couple of these big trucks, but in 2000 he died and his wife offered them to me, so I had a look at how I could beef them up and use them in my shows. I did a stack of driving in shows in the US and really got the hang of it.’ The first one Clive built here was inspired by his favourite footy team, the Broncos, and in 2001 he unveiled Australia’s first ever 3D (Special Moulded Shaped Truck), called Bronco Magic. This five-tonne giant has now evolved into the legendary Outback Thunda, which Clive claims as the favourite of his big, big toys. Opposite: Clive and Outback Thunda giving some curry to a collection of ‘retired’ cars

Clive explains how the driving is done: ‘You have a conventional steering wheel for the front wheels and a small toggle switch near the driver to activate steering at the rear wheels; hence the monster is not only fourwheel drive but four-wheel steer. Rolling over happens often enough—the crowds love it but I’m not so keen as it scratches the duco.’ Maintenance is in fact one of Clive’s big issues: ‘We literally pound these trucks, and if the nitrogen gas suspension that allows us to achieve these extreme stunts gets damaged, as it occasionally does, then it’s a cool $40K to replace it. Even a punctured tyre is $6K,’ he says with the throwaway cool of a bloke who’s used to bleeding money (and is no doubt raking it in too). Watching the locomotive-sized truck doing cyclones in the dust of the arena with Clive’s son Billy just visible high up in the driver’s cab makes you think you’ve got to be a certain kind of character to do this. Clive describes Billy’s learning curve at the age of thirteen: 198  Big Boys’ Toys

‘He was thrown into the deep end when we were short of a driver. He’d never really driven before but he proved he was a natural, jumping these cars without a hitch straight off.’ Jaye is also a great showman and does an amazing stunt where he grips onto the front of an old Ford that drives right through a flaming inferno. These boys are the youngest monster truck drivers in the world. Once the show is underway Clive is all over the place, leaping from one truck to another, doing his gargantuan leaps and car-crushing antics, setting off racks of fireworks and carmelting jet vans. Then it’s back to the finale where they all come out and ‘do freestyle’, which is what Billy calls ‘the part of the show where we do as much damage to cars, caravans, buses and motor-homes as we can’. Clive loves the driving and even though he’s trying to hand over to the younger ones he’s not sure what else he’d do. ‘I’ve been self-employed all my life, I wouldn’t be much good in a nine-to-five job. If I got stuck in

the traffic I’d just have to drive over the lot of them.’ The real pay off is at the end of the show when Clive takes a bow with his boys and

his team. It leaves you wondering, though, who the real stars are in this most theatrical of man and machine displays—the boys or their toys?

Clive with his sons and fellow performers Billy, 15, Jaye, 13, and 4-year-old apprentice Pat Photo courtesy of Clive Featherby

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On Your Trike Reg’s custom V8 trike, Taipan Big boy: Reg Toy: V8 trike, Taipan Description: Individually Constructed Vehicle (ICV) Engine: Gen 3 V8 5.7, Turbo 700 R4 auto transmission Power: 350 hp Top speed: 190 kph max, ‘but of course it never goes that fast!’ Weight: 900 kg

Size: 3.8 m Date in service: 2006 Value: ‘In America they sell from $US48,000. If you made and sold them here, they’d be something like $60–70K’ First toy: ‘Little Matchbox service station that had little hoists and a ramp where you can drive up on the roof’ Other toys: ‘A watercooled 1000 cc six-speed off road buggy’

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amazingly stable, even on winding roads. The sensation of flying takes over and the real thrill of three-wheeling becomes apparent. It’s no wonder Reg and his mate Darryl are so into their V8 three-wheelers. You see trikes of various types around the place, most of which are zippy little machines with VW engines in the back, but as far as Reg and Darryl are aware they own

s a passenger in Reg’s V8 trike, Taipan,   you feel incredibly vulnerable: there’s   nothing in front of you. You’re on a bench seat just behind the driver and to the side, so there’s no protection to block the wind or diffuse the sense of speed. You might as well be strapped to a seat on the bonnet of a car. The initial weirdness is replaced by the realisation that the trike is 201

the only registered V8 trikes in the country. The real difference is that the engine sticks out the front like some giant mechanised appendage. Darryl brought his into Australia from the US. ‘I had motorcycles since I was a young bloke and I’m nearly 65 now,’ he says. ‘I got this thing nine years ago and every time I ride it, it’s like the first day I ever got on it.’ Reg, who’s been into fast cars all his life had a V8 engine waiting for the next project, and was thinking about putting it in a Lotus 7 Clubman body, when Darryl rocked up with his trike. ‘I took it for a ride,’ says Reg, ‘and just fell in love with sitting there straddling a 350 Chev and steering up the road with these Harley handlebars. There was no chance of getting hold of one, so the only way to get one was to build it myself.’ ‘I used the motor I had and Darryl’s machine for a template. It’s all Darryl’s fault — he’s a bad influence,’ says Reg, looking for a rise from his mate. ‘I had a welder mate build 202  Big Boys’ Toys

a frame around the motor and another bloke did the body work—I just sort of imagined it. I knew I wanted to be able to take the bonnet off and fold it up into the boot, and have plenty of space to hold camping gear and luggage as well.’ Reg is now passionate about his new toy. ‘With Taipan, I wanted something different. Everyone’s driving around in beige Magnas with 10 airbags—there’s no individuality any­more. I designed this the way I wanted, a kind of three-wheel dragster, like a hot rod trike. I wanted it to be easy to drive, so it’s fully automatic and the engine is the same one they put in the new V8 Commodores.’ A motorised trike falls under the category of a motorbike, which means you have to wear a helmet and use a seatbelt, but it’s licensed to carry three. Any vehicle with passenger seats must also have mounts for a baby seat, and sure enough there they are—Reg has thought of everything. Imagine taking your toddler down the highway at 110—it’d

be covered in moths and bugs and it’d be freezing (and terrified), but it’d be safe! Before Reg’s trike could be registered, it was submitted to stringent testing by the authorities, who were quite surprised, Reg says. ‘The guys from the technical advisory committee are all experts in dragsters—they’re motorcyclists and the like, all very practical guys. They put it through its paces doing high-speed break testing and high-speed stability testing, and they said it handles excellently.’ One of the engineers, who happened to be a mud racer, wanted to see how fast it could go and opened it up to over 190 kph (using a local raceway for the tests), which is something Reg knew was possible but wasn’t really out to advertise. Apart from the thrill of the ride, the rarity of the trikes brings the guys lots of (welcome) attention. ‘I’ve met lots of lovely people through it—they come up to us,’ says Darryl. ‘Lots of older people in their fifties and sixties—they look at this and think it’s like a

big Santa Claus sleigh.’This effect is also aided somewhat by the fact that Darryl’s machine is bright red and his physique somewhat Kris Kringular. Reg adds, ‘Darryl’s wife, Jill, turns a few heads too. She drives it harder than Reg, and kids are always shocked when they see a granny with her shopping hopping on board and burning off!’ Doesn’t matter who you are, riding a V8 trike is always going to turn heads—and not just for its outlandish appearance. As Reg says, ‘There’s nothing like that sound, that almighty bloody rumbling V8 gurgle. Shame you can’t get that sound in your book, mate.’ Purely for pleasure  203

The Full Accompaniment John’s Mighty Wurlitzer organ Big boy: John Toy: Theatre organ Description: Wurlitzer Opus No 1808 Key Info: 3 manuals, 16 ranks Power: 7 hp electric blower Speed: ‘Nil, or about 340 m/sec—the speed of sound’ Weight: 4 tons Size: ‘Console 2 metres wide, then there’s all the gear’ Date in service: 30 November 1927

Value: ‘Only valuable if you can find a lunatic to buy it. Wouldn’t sell it as it’s too much fun listening to the music it produces. A similar organ in a theatre in Florida has been valued at $US350,000’ First toy: An army fort Other toys: 7'4" Kawai grand piano Ampico player piano and loads of rolls 3 different theatre projectors

T

he opportunity for John and his family to build a new two-storey house on the family block in the southern suburbs of Sydney back in the late 1980s was exciting for one and all. His kids would get their own bedrooms at last, his wife would get her longed-for ensuite, and John would get space for his Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ.

This was no small matter, because what was needed was basically half the house. John had already been playing with this vast and complex machine for decades in a shed next door, but now there was the opportunity to give it a real home, and so the house was literally designed around the organ. Not only could everything now fit in a safe and accessible manner, but an auditorium could be 205

included so that friends and family could enjoy this rare and entertaining toy. The double doors to the ground floor of John’s house are open and ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ hits you like the Bondi surf. John introduces his friend, theatre organist Alan, whose head is poking over the top of a large cabinet-looking object, (the body of the organ). In the room there’s enough space for 60 or 70 seats, together with the giant organ console and a grand piano. The curtained stage at one end has the drapes pulled back to reveal the screen, and a mezzanine level at the other end has two huge old-style movie projectors waiting to bring to life some silent gem that will no doubt require an organ accompaniment. The decoration is classic 1930s Regent Theatre, with domes in the ceiling and statues in niches on the walls. John says his wife spent a month painting the decorative plasterwork and that the wallmounted light fittings came from the Civic Theatre in Auburn, NSW. 206  Big Boys’ Toys

On a stand there’s an invitation for a charity concert John’s hosting shortly to celebrate the organ’s 80th birthday, and even though the auditorium looks more like a workshop at the moment, the organ itself is in fine voice and ready to show off to her adoring fans. The sound is magnificent, emanating from behind the screen and filling the room as if there were an orchestra on tap. In fact there virtually is.

In a room as big as an average garage, directly behind the screen, are the racks of pipes: 1300 individual organ pipes and instruments crammed into every nook and cranny, with tiny walkways so you can get in and around them and do the tuning that’s needed on a fairly regular basis. The big pipes actually disappear upstairs into compartments cut through to the floor above; the biggest is an intensely deep 16 footer (Wurlitzer’s biggest were 32 foot). There are also scores of bizarre percussion-type instruments—hooters, whistles, sirens, gongs, drums and bells. ‘Oh, that’s the bullshit department,’ says John dismissively. ‘All air operated, also known as the kitchenware department. You needed everything like that for sound effects in the silent movie days.’ It all boils down to being an efficient one-man band, with 16 different sounds to imitate trumpet, sax, flute, etc. There are 61 notes for each sound, all of which can be pre-set and mixed using the three different

Looking through the chamber to the 'kitchenware' department

keyboards. John then reveals the other rooms that make the whole thing work: the relay room, with thousands of matchbox-sized 1920s electrical switches; and the blower room, where a large, old electric motor drives a blower (which is about the size of a twodoor fridge) that forces air into all the waiting pipes in the pipe chamber room below. All Purely for pleasure  207

this works harmoniously thanks to John’s huge commitment and tireless restoration and maintenance efforts. John says it all began not long after he graduated as a mechanical engineer. ‘I was involved in looking after the organ in the Capitol Theatre in Haymarket and became fascinated with it, but it’d been damaged, probably by someone falling over and crushing the little metal pipes. Then I heard that a fellow had one for sale; it was in perfect condition but he’d begun to “nickel and dime” it to death [sell off the components] so I said to the wife we have to negotiate with him. I then had to get a loan from the bank—£2000—this is 1963 and I was still in my early twenties living with my mother. It was a lot of money in those days.’ From then on, the Wurlitzer has always been a big thing in all their lives. ‘The bloke I bought it from said to me the other day it was just as well I came along because it would never have been restored 208  Big Boys’ Toys

otherwise.’ Now it’s the largest remaining object to survive from the legendary Regent Theatre which was wastefully demolished in 1989.’ It really is a major commitment. ‘An organ like this is not owned by you, you are owned by it. As the custodian of it, you are at its beck and call,’ John says. But John

doesn’t seem to mind. As he sits back and listens to Alan play the William Tell Overture, he confides, ‘This is the best time, when someone as good as Alan or one of my other organist mates are in full flight. It’s a special talent to play one of these, and I just sit here in seventh heaven.’

Purely for pleasure  209

The Mighty Wurlitzer and Opus No. 1808

R

udolph Wurlitzer began dealing in automated instruments in the 1880s. His company began making pipe organs in 1911 and made 2238 organs until production ceased in 1943. The Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ was designed as a ‘one-man orchestra’ to accompany silent movies but was also taken up for use in churches, halls, private homes and other public places, and came in a variety of sizes. Opus No. 1808—the 1808th organ to be made at the North Tonawanda factory in New York State—was shipped to the Capitol Theatre in Perth in 1927 but was diverted to the Regent Theatre in Sydney to replace an organ that wasn’t up to the task of filling the cavernous 2000-seat auditorium. The organs were an important part of theatre entertainment in the early days of film. Even with the advent of sound in 1932, the quality was so poor that the Mighty Wurlitzer was able to create the sense of full orchestration and clear sound from the concealed ranks of pipes and instruments.

210  Big Boys’ Toys

In the 1950s their use was already on the wane, and television put paid to most of the remaining instruments still in service, including 1808, which was finally decommissioned around 1955. The spectacular Regent Theatre itself was removed forever in 1989. Only 18 Mighty Wurlitzers came to Australia in the 1920s, and six second-hand models were imported to Australia between 1975 and 1999. A couple have been burnt, a few others demolished, some are now too dilapidated to play, and only about half a dozen remain in working order. Three of these are in private homes like John’s, with a few others still in theatres or in the care of societies dedicated to their preservation The Wurlitzer Opus 1808 in a starring role on stage at the Regent Theatre and play. circa 1950 Photo courtesy of John Thiele

Purely for pleasure  211

Off the Rails My one-to-one scale train set, Ruwenzori Big boy: Scott Toy: Ruwenzori (pron. Roo-wen-zor-ee) Description: Bush retreat with nine railway carriages, including ex-NSWGR sleeping car TAM 638, and associated infrastructure Built by: TAM 638 built by Meadowbank Manufacturing Ltd Power: ‘No locomotive present, much to my dismay’ Top speed: ‘Only in my dreams’ Weight: TAM—48 tonnes (including bogies) Size: TAM 74'4¼" (22.7 m) × 9'4" (2.85 m) width × 13'5" (4.1 m) high Date in service: 1927, moved in 1984

Value: ‘TAM bought for $500 from the railways. Similar carriage sold for $50K a few years ago but 25 years’ work and untold funds on it together with the whole site make it priceless’ First toy: ‘Build-a-bricks—a forerunner to Lego. Always been an empire builder!’ Other toys: Two Villiers two-stroke 1950s railway quadricycles Two railway hand trikes (one two-man and one single) Large HO gauge train set O gauge train set G gauge garden railway

T

raditionally a bloke’s home is his castle but in some cases, I would propose, it can also be his toy. Ruwenzori, my railway carriage retreat, is more playground than house, where folly and fantasy share equal billing with function and comfort. Opposite: Inside the sleeping car, enjoying some leisure time!

I know a number of people who have their own similar plush, private railway coaches and just love to hook onto whatever train takes their fancy for a trip in style. I like to think that my train doesn’t need to go anywhere any more, as it’s already arrived at the 213

ultimate terminus, at the very top of a granite boulder mountain on the Great Dividing Range, just out of Mudgee in central NSW. The views extend as far as you can see and my collection of vintage carriages, combined with track, signals, station buildings, follies and acres of memorabilia, is my own big boy’s toy. My place is a shrine to the halcyon days of the NSW Government Railways, and almost everything that makes up the retreat has a connection back to some aspect of its history. The quirky conglomeration of objects retrieved from the far corners of the state’s once-vast rail system creates a scene that resembles an isolated railway junction, where time and tide have remodelled and eroded. Railway tracks no longer meet up, carriages connect around unnatural bends, rails disappear off the cliff and the station building looks as if it’s slipped down the hill a bit leaving the train coming in at an angle above it. Specially selected ironwork, columns and rustic sandstone-walled sunken 214  Big Boys’ Toys

gardens all set the scene. I can’t escape the fact that, while the whole place is really well decked out (think Orient Express or the Royal Train), it’s also a little bit ‘off the rails’. I like to imagine, in a millennium or two, archaeologists scratching their heads trying to make sense of all the long-since buried iron and rail. From the date stamped into a concrete step they’ll be able to trace its beginning back to 1980 when, in my early twenties, my family bought a 25-acre property as a weekender and gave me the OK to raise my own flag, erect a signal, lay a bit of track and squat on it with a vintage end-platform passenger carriage. This carriage, condemned by the railways, had been converted for railway workers’ use, with a fuel stove, a sink and bunks built into its high-ceilinged, timber-panelled rooms. It was in OK condition despite its 90 years of use and it still oozed character. The railways had carriages to burn at the time (literally, on occasion) and they virtually gave them away—this one cost $200, double the

Giving my first carriage a helping hand on its arrival at Ruwenzori in 1981

normal price because I wanted the bogies as well! Little did anyone know how great my obsession with railway carriage interiors, and the master craftsmanship that was featured in them, would become. The year 1984 saw my life-size ‘train set’ really take shape with the addition of a much-dreamed-of TAM sleeping car. This once-grand carriage had been trashed in its last years but there was still enough potential in its cedar-panelled interior and sound structure to have me transporting it to the central position in my growing fleet of rolling stock. ‘How the hell did you get these up here?’ is the usual reaction from first timers when

they visit Ruwenzori. Getting the sleeper’s 22-metre length and 40-ton bulk up a steep bush track to the top of a mountain did present a challenge and a train buff friend who was on hand to witness its historic last journey passed the comment that seeing a TAM sleeping car being ‘double-headed’ (two engines pulling) up a mountain pass by a Galion grader and an International prime mover with a bobcat as a ‘banker’ (a pushing engine) was a sight for sore eyes. The very next day my mates and I began a restoration job that proceeded on and off for the next 20 years. When the carriage came to Ruwenzori all the brass and silver fittings had been stripped, many of the windows had been broken, panelling and internal walls ripped out and there was even a dead sheep in the corridor. I began the restoration by remodelling the interior, creating some larger ‘state’ rooms and reinstating an original double bunk sleeping compartment. Then followed a marble bathroom, plus many Purely for pleasure  215

of the original fixtures and fittings I had collected, like the magnificent decorative silver pull-down wash basins. Over the years, with landscaping, additional carriages like the big water tanker wagon for my water supply and the wonderful old Pullman car in position, plus the trackwork and a shed in the guise of an original timber station building, it now looks like the sleeping car has been there forever. There will always be something to do at Ruwenzori—as we all know tinkering with our toys is half the fun. My big new gantry signal from the Coonamble branch line junction needs to have its lever frame connected so it works again, I still don’t have a locomotive, and so on—so watch this space (cue wifely howls of outrage). These days I mostly go up there with friends so we can all enjoy playing with my toys, and not as much work gets done. A couple of years ago I opened the place up to paying guests. This was initially a source of angst for me, but having others appreciate 216  Big Boys’ Toys

Signals, sleeping cars, track machines. Ruwenzori has more toys than a playgroup

the place has actually allowed me to enjoy it even more. After all, what’s the point in having a big boy’s toy if no-one else gets to play with you?

Sleeping cars in NSW

T

he first sleeping car in NSW was imported from America and entered service in 1877. It was followed by more locally built sleepers in the 1880s, which paved the way for luxury sleeping car trains made up of legendary American ‘Pullman’ designed carriages of the 1890s. Starting in 1913, 50 of the even smoother and more commodious TAM sleeping cars entered service and became the main sleeping car accommodation on the system for the next 50 years. The demise of the overnight mail trains in the 1970s and 1980s saw many of them handed over to museums, recycled for use as trackside accommodation, or scrapped. Today about half of these carriages survive, some in private hands but most in the many museums devoted to preserving our rich railway history.

Purely for pleasure  217

Useful links Here are some websites of people and organisations mentioned in this book, or that I sourced for leads and info.

Introductory pages

Jet boats

Museum

Australian Jetsprint Championships

of

Fire

www.museumoffire.com.au

www.v8superboats.com.au

Col Pay’s

www.paysairservice.com.au

Off Road Racing

Temora Aviation Museum

Offroad Racing Information Services

family company,

Pay’s Air Service

www.offroadracing.com.au

www.aviationmuseum.com.au

Scott McG regor

and

Off The Rails

When ‘boys’ band together

www.otr.com.au

Groups

One—Winning isn’t everything  .  .  .

These groups are always looking for more volunteers:

Tractor pulling

Historic Aircraft Restoration Society

Australian Tractor Pullers Association

www.hars.org.au

www.austractorpulls.org

Sydney Heritage Fleet

Quambatook Tractor Pullers Association

www.shf.org.au

www.members.iinet.net.au/~jobbo

Puffing Billy Railway www.puffingbilly.com.au

Drag racing Western Sydney International Dragway www.wsid.com.au

218

Two—Out of this world

The Wright Flyer Narromine Aviation Museum www.narromineaviationmuseum.org.au

Hearse Destiny Tours www.destinytours.com.au

Rocketry Queensland Rocketry Society www.qldrocketry.com

John's Observatory Mudgee Observatory

Nunawading Wargames Association www.nwa.org.au

Three—Workhorses

Paddle-steamer Port

of

Echuca

www.portofechuca.org.au

Section cars Australian Society

of

Section Car Operators

www.assco.org.au

Ken’s Section Car Shed www.kenssectioncarshed.org

Zig Zag Railway

www.mudgeeobservatory.com.au

www.zigzagrailway.com.au

Sutherland Astronomical Society

Vintage tractor

www.sasi.net.au

Flykes

flykeaustralia.blogspot.com

When small toys go big

Small things The Australian Battle G roup www.ausbg.org

Mid North Coast M achinery Restoration Club Inc www.rustyironrally.com

Plough Book Sales online bookstore Tractors, old engines, earthmoving equipment, live scale model making, steam power and metal working www.ploughbooksales.com.au

Double-decker bus Sydney Bus Museum www.sydneybusmuseum.com

Useful links  219

Cobb & Co. stagecoach Cobb & Co. Museum www.cobbandco.qm.qld.gov.au

Steam locomotive NSW Rail Transport Museum www.nswrtm.org

3801

steam locomotive

Sunseeker

yacht

www.sunseeker.com.au

Ferrari www.ferrari.com.au

Four—Battle hardened

Cannon

www.3801limited.com.au

Corps

Lighthouse

www.nswcorpsofmarines.org.au

Lighthouses

of

Australia

www.lighthouse.net.au

of

M arines

Australasian Register

of

Ironfest

Engines

www.ironfest.com.au

Turon Technology Museum

Tank

www.hermes.net.au/turon

The Old M achinery M agazine www.tomm.com.au

Living History Organisations

www.arlho.net

The Empire Trading & Disposals Co. (the place to buy a tank) www.timvibert.com

Australian Military Vehicles Index www.mheaust.com.au/Aust/Austindex.htm

The toy shop AgustaWestland

helicopter

Jet fighter

www.agustawestland.com www.heliflite.com.au

Bathurst Vintage Joyflights

Harley-Davidson

Australian Warbirds Association

motorbike

www.harleydavidson.com.au

220  Big Boys’ Toys

www.bathurstjoyflights.com www.australianwarbirds.com.au

Armour

Australian Street Rodding M agazine www.graffitipub.com.au

Condottieri www.condottieri.com.au

Custom bike

Talerwin Forge www.frojel.com/members/talerwin

Army duck

Kingpin Choppers www.cmesales.com.au

Wintersun Festival

Corowa GPA Swim-In

and

Military Vehicle Rally

www.wintersun.org.au

www.corowa30.org

Live

Five—Purely for pleasure

Monster truck

Steam car

Australian Monster Truck Racing Association

Steam & Engine

of

to

Ride M agazine

www.livetoride.com.au

www.amtra.net.au

Australia

www.steamengine.com.au

Theatre organ

Vintage yacht

Rod Blackmore’s Australasian Theatre Organs

Australian Register

of

Historic Vessels

www.theatreorgansaust.info

www.anmm.gov.au

Railway carriages

Classic yachts

Ruwenzori Retreat

Classic Yacht Association

of

Australia

www.ruwenzori.com.au

www.classic-yacht.asn.au

Hot rod Australian Street Rod Federation www.asrf.org.au

Useful links  221

Notes Most of the information in this book was supplied by the ‘boys’ themselves, or my own general knowledge. In some cases I’ve added information sourced from the following places, usually just for the history section of the stories. Indian Motorcycle: Wikipedia; www.allamericanindianmotorcycleclub.com Wright Flyer: Wikipedia Paddlesteamer Hero: Riverina Herald, 1874 (Gary’s own copy); Murray Darling Riverboats, Peter Plowman, Rosenberg 2005 Zig Zag Railway: www.zigzagrailway.com.au Lanz Bulldog: www.lanz-bulldog-homepage.de Cobb & Co.: Cobb & Co. museum website, www.cobbandco.qm.qld.gov.au/history 3112: Locomotives of Australia, Leon Oberg, Reed Books, 1984 Pam the pearling lugger: Dan referred to the book Memoirs of a Misspent Youth, by Tom Ronin, publisher unknown. Centurion tank: Wikipedia and Australian War Memorial Website, www.awm.gov.au; Ron refers to the book Military Briefs No 3: Australian Centurions in Vietnam, Shane Lovell, Mouse House Enterprises Australia, www.mheaust.com L39: Jet Fighters International website, www.jetfightersintl.com/history.htm; Warbird Alley website, www. warbirdalley.com/l39.htm Army duck: Wikipedia Stanley and Doble steamers: Wikipedia; Stanley Museum website, www.stanleymuseum.org Maluka: Sailworld website, www.sail-world.com; Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race website, rolexsydneyhobart.com Hot rod: Wikipedia; Larry O’Toole, Australian Street Rodding Magazine Wurlitzer: Wikipedia; Answers.com; Rod Blackmore’s Australasian Theatre Organs website, www. theatreorgansaust.info TAM sleeping car: Passenger Cars of the NSWR, L.A. Clark, Traction Publications, ACT, 1972 222