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[markson]

Hi My name is Graham

I am going to use this thread to write a little info,on all the interesting cars that I have owned over the last 62 odd years from my age of 14,and how I managed to come by them.
Also all the people that I met,and where some of the cars are now, and how they have ended up, starting with the first car I ever purchased and owned, before I came to NZ back in 1961.
Some of the photo's that I show, are not of my car's, but one's that were exactly the same make and model.

At this stage ,this is only a rough draft.

I arrived in NZ on the 5 of July 1961 after leaving Australia at the age of 20 having grown up in the horse and cart era bringing to NZ with me, a vast amount of knowledge of motor cars in general, as only a 20 year old would have gleaned from his experiences of the time.

My vast knowledge consisted of knowing

1 They ran on petrol
2 They had a battery to help you start them
3 Sometimes you had to crank them over by hand, if for some reason the battery had gone flat,
and if all else failed,you and your mates had to push the bloody thing to get it started, if you were clever enough you always made sure that you parked the thing on a downward slope,that way you did away, with the need to have too many hanger,s on mates to help you push start it if the battery was flat.

Also it was almost the done thing of a Saturday night, when you went to the local dance, and you were lucky enough to pick yourself up a temporary girlfriend for the rest of night. you always made sure that you had parked slanting, down hill
In not having to push the dam thing, or crank it,it gave you a bit more energy for other energy sapping activities later on in the evening or early in the morning,so you always made sure that you parked on a downward slope,if you went to a dance.

Sometimes you had to park some distance from the dance hall to enable you to park on the down hill ,but that was OK as it gave you a bit of time to get to know you new girl friend better, before you fell madly in love for the rest of the night,also you had to have a vast knowledge on changing tires and mending puncher's on the side of the road ,as it was normal to have at least one puncher a week.

You were considered to have a very reliable car back then, if your car went for more than a month without a puncher or flat battery,and it was not using at least a canvas water bag full of water a week,also you did not need an oil gauge because if it was not belching smoke out the exhaust, you knew you were out of oil. also you were considered to have a luxury make ,if it had twin side mounted spare tires ,as that gave you the opportunity of getting away with not having to mend a puncher on the side of the road ,if you were unlucky enough to have had two punchers in one day

Having said all of that ,the first car that I ever owned and brought at the age of 14 with some of the proceed's from my wages from the paper run that I had at the time, was a 1932 Ford B model tourer which I brought off a farmer in Eaglehawk ,Eaglehawk is just outside Bendigo.

Imagine this without running boards and no mud guards
No bonnet side cowling's
No roof
No head lights
And flat looking tires



I paid the price'ly sum of Two Pounds Five Shilling's and Six pence for it.
Not to bad a price then, but my uncle Frank always said that I paid to much for it, considering it had no mud guard's or running boards, the bonnet side panels had gone the canvas hood was long gone, and it had no back seat.
As the farmer had only used it to cart stuff around the farm in , all those parts were of no use, also the front right & left hand head light had also gone as well, there were no tubes in the tires as rubber was very hard to come by after the war, and you had to look very hard to find tubes, and the tires were only packed very tight,filled with straw, which was pretty handy as I did not have to worry about getting punches, at least once a week ,although after a time ,the straw would slowly disintegrate,and turn to chaff ,which was a bit of a nuisance, as it would mean having to repack the tires every now and then ,after a while we found it better to use green grass as it seemed to have lasted a little longer between re packing,you had to be a little careful, when you let out the clutch pedal,as it had a tendency to spin the tire on the rim .

Looking back to then, I think it must have been one of the very first cars to sport low profile tires ,and the weight of the car sitting on the tires packed with grass, made the rim roughly an inch or so off the ground,and the tires stuck out the sides of the rims both sides about 2 inches .
I think from memory that the wheels were about 18 inch wire spoke with solid rimes ,I know they were a pain to pack the grass in ,they would have been much better if they had have been split rim.

Back in 1917 this was the solution for the shortage of rubber in Germany
I guess the grass was the Australian solution, back then



Modern day invention , Airless tires ???