Cars (part three)

Two comments on the blog have prompted this addition to “cars”
What about the Camira and the HD Holden?
In 1983 my wife came home and said, “I have just been looking at a wonderful little car and it’s only done 1800 Kilometers. I asked her what sort of car was it and she replied,” It’s a bronze Camira".
Now If I was ever to buy another 4 cylinder car I had promised myself it would be a Japanese job (A Japanese kidney), but what got me was the almost as new “mileage”.
Like a lamb to the slaughter I went to the car yard, my defenses were down, it was all but new.
I said to the man, I believe it’s only done 1800 Kilometers, and he said “that’s right”
When I had made the purchase and was driving the car home, I looked at the odometer more carefully and noticed there was an extra zero on the “mileage. How could a grown man be so dumb?
Anyway, it wasn’t the end of the world and as far as Camiras go the car was OK, but not as good as the Japanese counterparts.
Two things stick in my mind about the Camira the first, when you had the heater on you could have a direct little stream of cold air blowing on your face. I thought that was a great idea and yet I have never seen it on another car.
The second thing was when I collected Benjamin, my number six son from school and said come on. We are going up to Queensland where the rest of the family are. When we got past Goodiwindi we ran into flooded roads. Not to be thwarted we went back to Goonda and continued up about 100K what is now called the adventure highway and turned right again. We were”cooking with gas” so to speak, when we ran into more serious water over the road. Some opportunists were there with special vehicles towing people through the water to the other side; they were charging $30 a pop which was just not in my equation.
A man ahead of me in a high vehicle, said, “Follow me across, and if you get into trouble I will hook on and pull you through”. I was game for that, so off we went, the water got deeper and deeper and I began to have to gun the motor to keep it going, I think it had something to do with the exhaust pipe being well submerged rather that water around the electricals. The motor gave up the ghost and I had to crawl out the window to hook onto my hero in front. I was quite surprised when we were through to find that the engine burst into life first try. I would think that all of this is firmly entrenched in Ben’s memory. When we got to our destination
I had to pull all the thick synthetic sponge like, flooring out and dry it in the hot Queensland sun.





One notable car before that was a HD Holden, The model before this was the HR, which became an enthusiast car, very popular, the HD was at least as good but had futuristic shrouds on the headlights and nobody ever likes anything on a car that is to soon for their minds. The two faults with this car, was firstly that the previous owner, a lady, said that it ran out of water once and boiled. I had reason to think that some of the top rings had cracked. The second was that the automatic was a two speed powerglide, which worked well but increased the cars thirst for the liquid gold.
The great memory of this car was that we made quite a few trips to Sydney for holidays at Uncle Murray’s place. We would leave on the eve of my holidays and drive through the night with all the boys on a mattress in the back asleep most of the way, except for Gregory, number three son, who always seemed to be awake when there were reflecting “Cats eyes” to be seen on the centre of the road. Out of the darkness would come this little voice saying “Cats Eyes, Cats Eyes, Cats Eyes”.
I remember on at least one occasion lighting a fire at the side of the road, past Goulburn
and cooking sausages for breakfast.
These were days of high adventure, not only for the boys but for us as parents also.
It’s a funny thing about Greg, he was not adverse to excessive speeds and daring as an older teenager, but as a boy, when there was scenery for me, the driver, to see on high and twisty roads, Greg would be standing in the back, right behind my ear, saying, “You just watch the road dad”.
When he was about 13 I decided it was time for him to give him a bit of a drive and he took off like a racing driver and scared the wits out of me, more so as I discovered he could barely see over the steering wheel.
As I think about memories of cars, and trips in them, thousands of memories come flooding into my mind and I feel that I could go on ad infintum, (and perhaps ad nauseum),which all goes to show something of our love affair with the “car” over the last 100 years

Despite the ad nauseum I just can’t help adding a bit of a PS
Talking of resistance to change, especially sudden change, I remember the men in Quambatook looking at a new car, this car actually had a boot that was not unlike the bonnet or hood. They stood their in disbelief. Laughing and saying, “Which way is it going to go? Ha hah ha”
And when my dad bought a new 1949 standard vanguard , (which incidentally was built like a tank) a huge farmer, Harry James I think, went over to the car and hit the roof heavily three or four time with a fist like a ham saying, “It’s just a bit of tin”.

A few pictures of cars.
Murray's pride and joy, a new Vanguard Ute. He drove a bride to a wedding in it and someone wrote "Just Married" all over it with chalk, which is abrasive, Murray was not pleased when this could still be seen after cleaning writing off.
At Lake Merran with boys, and removing the motor for a replacement of clutch and rings etc on the farm.