Man Shed

Friday the 13th.

Where do I begin?

When I was working at the 4WD & Adventure Show in Perth, one of the guys on the New Age Caravan stands was a chap named John. He lives at "the back of the Dandenongs" in Melbourne. What do you do? says I. Just the Caravan Shows & I'm retired!

The conversation went on, " I've got a bit of a collection of historic racing cars"

Well my alarm bells went off, "can we come & have a look when we're in Melbourne in January?"
Off we went to an "undisclosed location" at the back of the aforementioned Dandenongs.

Past Puffing Billy's bridge.

Well this is a MAN'S SHED.

I've got a mate @ Ferrari who rings me up occasionally & says send me some money!

In this case Nikki Lauda's steering wheel.
I know a guy @ Phillip Island, he rang me up & asked if I wanted a Honda practice bike?

These are used by the GP riders to "get their lines" & are usually destroyed ?????????????

For those of you interested double click to blow it up & check out the welds, superb.

This is a V8 Peugeot made by a bloke in Australia who wanted more power in his 403. So he grafted 2 four cylinder 403 motors together,hmmmm. Perfectly reliable, every few years Peugeot rings him up & asks if they can buy it off him for their museum.

The little black car in the bottom left was the world record holder for " tethered racing cars", model cars that were timed racing around a pole on a wire, in the days when people couldn't afford to race real cars. This little dude was timed @ 113 mph.

Garrie Cooper of Elfin fame,one of Australia's pioneer racing car manufacturers, produced some of our greatest racing cars in all types & classes.

These two Formula VEE's are his first & last of the class....

Alison behind an immaculately restored MG M type that was little more than a pile of rusty bits.

Do you know where the name "Petrol Bowser" came from? the little red one on the right was made by Bowser in Canada & was the first Petrol Bowser! bet you didn't know that!

This little silver car was used in the 1998 REDEX re-enactment, can you imagine 2 guys sitting in this flogging their way through the bush???

" the car was fine but the driver & navigator needed attention" was the comment in the press after the event.

A cabinet showing the development of the racing helmet, up to Jean Alessi's aerodynamic helmet.
This is a scale model of a F1 Ferrari with a quad bike motor, that a loving Grandfather, in Canberra spent 3 years building for his grandson.

His daughter said he's not having that, I don't want him to get involved with racing cars, get rid of it !!!!

I said to Alison on the way back "I'd have shot the daughter!"

And this is John's first Billy Cart which he raced down the Black Spur!!!!!????? We had just come down that road in Toby & Turtle, all I can say is bloody hell!

John thanks for a fantastic morning......

Hopefully we'll catch up in Perth at the next Caravan & 4WD show.