ITEMS OF INTEREST

"Guzzoline! Thousands of gallons of it, as much as you want!"


 

September 2005.     

     This is Gordon Hayes circa 1985 and the dune buggy that he drove through the Gibson, Great sandy, Victoria, and Simpson deserts. A four month trip that took him across all of Australia’s major deserts.

     At one point Gordon learnt (from a mining company pilot) that the mining survey teams had helicopter fuel dumps positioned in isolated desert locations. The fuel was more expensive to get to the location than the actual cost of the juice itself, plus for aviation use the fuel had a short life span (12 months). And once the fuel lifespan had expired the cost of removing the fuel was greater then the actual value of the fuel. So the fuel was left to be unused forever.

     The survey pilot advised Gordon that any fuel over a certain date past the drum's template manufacture date they could have for free. Hundreds of gallons of "guzzoline" abandoned out in the western deserts and all we had to do was find the fuel dumps, check the template date, and fill up. Naturally the Hayes brain sees only MAD MAX 2 and you think... Oh yes please… hell … for one time in my life I am going to live this! And so the search for abandoned "guzzoline" was on. This is a true story, it was 20 years ago this year.

     From Gordon: “The Aussie Stetson hat I still have. It took me weeks of stacking the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the hat rim to get it flat. The green Jacket was the inner lining of a NATO flying jacket. The scarf my then girlfriend Annette (now wife) hand-made. It was about 3 meters long, and in the really cold weather when driving you had to breathe through it to keep the cold out of your lungs. The gloves likewise kept the cold air from freezing the hands. The white belt around the green jacket came from a “Dave Starsky” style Mexican jacket.

     “The desert afternoons were very pleasant, the desert infact had warm sunny days, but the mornings were freezing cold, as you see the vehicle had no doors, and really almost no weather protection at all. At night I slept straight on the ground. In the really bad weather I had a full kit of motorcycle oilskins to keep me warm, but in the dryer climate I wore the clothes in the picture.

     “The dune buggy was powered by a water-cooled Toyota engine. The pipe running forward from the back of the car (from the air cleaner to the roll hoop) fed clean air to the engine. I hooked up the pipe after I discovered that the air filter was blocking with red dust in about a day! The car was never licensed, I just bolted the licence plate from my car at the time (a turbo charged Panel Van) onto the car and headed off. All in all it was the best trip of my life.

     “As far as I can tell to this day, the car remains the only two wheel drive vehicle to have ever covered the totally isolated and completely facility free 1,000 kilometres of the Canning Stock route in West Australia. The dune buggy was my older brother Malcolm’s idea and it was chosen for my transport because I simply could not afford a 4X4 at the time. The Canning Stock route is covered in sand dunes. Malcolm rightly deducted that a dune buggy would have the off-road prowess to cover the terrain. Much of what I learnt on the trip, in terms of what a car needs to carry to cover long distance in an outback environment I have applied to the Road Warrior replica.”
 

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Now Offered "FOR SALE" Not just any Torana, "the" Torana...


 
By Gordon Hayes, October 2004.    

     In 1979 Australia's premier motor race, the 1000 Kilometer endurance event at Bathurst, saw perhaps its most dominate triumph. After just over six and a half hours of racing, the Peter Brock 05 Torana A9X hatchback had disseminated the field to finish the race 6 laps clear of the second place vehicle (also a Torana A9X). It was win unprecedented in the race history and to ice the cake a young Peter Brock in his racing prime recorded the fastest lap of the race and broke the circuit record an his very last lap! The win was beyond victory, it was a total destruction.

     At Bathurst in 1979 the Torana A9X laid its own pathway into retirement and the history books, and with 1980 came a new Holden brand body shape. The Glorious Torana Hatchback shape, a body shell that had permitted the company to build one of Australia's prettiest race cars was gone from the race tracks. We have all heard the term "gone but not forgotten". Such is the case with this race car. Keen to learn and uncover more on the machine he had so long admired was my brother Martin, who built this replica. But some people ask always of Interceptors and race cars alike, so why build a replica?

     And the answer...

     Let's face it. Very few of us ever get to experience the classic movie or race and muscle-era machines in the flesh. That three dimensional real life image is always elusive. For us average "Joe's" most of our memories are the flat TV images and still photographic captures of the glory days now past.

     In building a replica you find that the research involved will take you deeper and deeper into the inner sanctum of a vehicle than any simple common interest ever would. Before your eyes you get to bring that ageing flat celluloid image to life, to walk around it, to update the mental pictures into 3D. And then to feel, and to hear, and to touch the object.

     When I fist visited this my brother's replica of the famous 05A9X, I was amazed at just how much charisma even a replica can carry. The aura was such that this famous 05 Brock replica looked surreally out of place in any domestic setting. Besides doing the paintwork and all the general construction work and being a toolmaker by trade, Martin fabricated all the custom metal parts himself including the roll cage and all the alloy work. The vehicle is powered by Holden's classic 308 "hp" block V8 just as the race car was. NOTE: October 2007 This vehicle is now in the workshop of Gordon and Grant where it shall be prepared for sale. Beyond machanical upgrades cosmetic "correction work" shall take place. The Interior shall be replaced to replicate the race car and the vehicle shall be substantially tidied up to better reflect the Peter Brock 1979 racecar. Expected market price shall be in the region of $40,000 AUD Expressions of interest can be directed to Gordon or Grant.

    
 
 

           

           

 

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Land Cruisers


 
By Gordon Hayes, October 2004.

     On a recent visit to Kalgoorlie, I came across both my brother's purpose built desert Land cruiser and Peter Vernon his mate from Victoria's similar desert Land Cruiser. Both Martin's and Peter's cruisers are purpose modified to be used for over land outback desert work. Over the years both Martin and Peter have tracked many of the movements made by the early Australian inland explorers. This tracking is undertaken in the most isolated and forbidding Australian landscape.

     In the lonely sandy deserts we find Australia's harshest environments for these areas subject to both sudden flooding rain and 50 deg C heat. Most of Martin's exploration work is navigated hundreds of miles inland. It is tough country and far from the sealed roads here deep in the outback in which we find a true wilderness without tracks or roads. The pathways to be followed are thus established on GPS data alone.

     The vehicle as you see has sustained significant damage to the body panels as a result of the massive cross-country mileage and violently rough terrain. Under the massive torsion loads of the outback terrain the Land cruisers traditionally break first at the "A" pillar. Martin's cruiser has had significant repair work to this section.

     These vehicles are driven to the destruction of the steel yet the drive trains are maintained to the highest degree, but as the pictures show in the bush the steel bodies are eventually battered into a pulp. A couple of true desert vehicles, you can notice that that carry massive loads both inside and on them. With no fuel stations or facilities of any kind, everything needs to be carried. So the vehicles are "pack mules" for food, water, fuel... everything.

Interesting machines indeed.
 
 

        

     

 

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