today's edition...........just a quick backflip to May 1973, had my driver's licence for just one month - decided to drive to work (67 Spencer St, Melbourne - now the Grand Hotel) to show off the bus...............
Mine is in the back row (of the movies?) centre - you will notice the permanent "P" plate wired to the grill.................
This is a period pic - take a peek at my colleagues vehicles - the chap I worked with has the front row EH sedan - he rolled that a year later......
Also in same month - went on annual leave and towed caravan to Sydeny - post a pic of that combo shortly.........little "tale" to tell about brakes.....
Ok back to April 1974 ("I was only 19......")- I had transferred from a clerical position to locomotives - (my avatar pic was taken at the loco depot) - this was the interior - notice heater, tacho (one of the holes still to be corrected in the dash) and auxiliary gauge panel - made of aluminium - I am not a metalworker! - Karsten - these were the "arrow" gauges originally fitted.
Also fitted at the time was a "wolf whistle" - basically a valve fitted to the inlet manifold which "whistled" when the control wire was pulled ........
I very nearly cut my finger off with this wire - upside down under the dash, and shorted the wire across the amp gauge - cut through the oil line, engine running and hot wire burned well into the finger - can't tell you how uncomfortable that experience was..................
Moving up to January 1975 - alteration here is to black out the vertical grill bars.............
To finish this chapter we jump to February 1977 - this was as drastic as the body was modified -
vertical grill bars removed, over-riders removed and bonnet bar emblem painted turquoise.......
This pic was taken at West Beach caravan park, Adelaide - the little van I bought from my parents not long after getting my license - it was covered in Masonite - and as heavy as heck - in 1977 we removed much of the Masonite and covered it as it is here in aluminium............
In May 1973 after having my licence for only one month - took this combo solo across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on "P" plates - think I started to learn a lot about weight, brakes and mirrors from that trip - came back via Canberra to the coast down the dreaded "Brown's Mountain" to Bateman's Bay - lost the brakes on two occasions - have great respect for "cooling off" after heavy applications - later to become very applicable to my trade....
In pic, note use of "cross-screen" filter to give the "starred" effect to pic highlights.......................
Vehicle made it's first crossing of the 100,000 mile mark at Renmark
on 13th January 1977........
pic is of speedo at 99,999.9
to be continued................
frats,
Rosco
