The Vintage Sports Car Club of Australia

 The centenary re-enactment of the Boyd Edkins Melbourne to Sydney run on the 18^th March is just over,

Well it disappoints me greatly to tell you all that we didn’t make it to the finish. We gave it our best shot, but were beaten on several fronts, not the least of which was time. When the event was first raised a year ago Peter Adams, the owner of 50 Bob, was enthusiastic to do the re-enactment himself with family support. It was only really when Peter’s health had so deteriorated that we, as the VSCCA, stepped in to carry out the re-enactment at a mere four weeks’ notice. Six months would have been far better, but we had a strong belief that the re-enactment should happen on the actual Centenary day and it would, of course, also be a fine tribute to Peter as well as celebrating Boyd Edkins achievement in 1916.

After weeks of exceptionally hot weather and not a drop of rain in sight it was inevitable that it would all change on the day. We towed 50 Bob to Melbourne in perfect weather, but an overnight change brought heavy rain on the Friday. We were up before 3am getting ready and drove 50 Bob from its garaging at Tullamarine into the city in pouring rain and a temperature of about 14 degrees. Fortunately, there is not much traffic at 4.30am so we passed through the centre of Melbourne city to the old GPO where the record originally started from and met a few friends and photographers from the RAC. At exactly 5am

we left following Pat Ryan in the Vauxhall TT replica along Elizabeth Street then into Flemington Road. At 5.18am we ran through an enormous puddle which flooded the magneto and the car stopped dead. This resulted in a lot of fiddling and about 30 minutes lost, whilst all the time the rain came down. Back on the move, we proceeded up the City Link Freeway to the Tullamarine Freeway and then finally onto the Mickleham Road which at its northern end becomes the Old Sydney Road, the same as taken by Boyd Edkins. It became apparent that this road has not changed much since Edkins time being for some distance gravel with a fair bit of corrugation, twisty and with no illumination at all. Not ideal in the absolutely pitch black and pouring rain with veteran headlights and Richard who was driving with me as passenger was struggling to see the road at all at times. During this stage the magneto continued to perform erratically often dropping down to three cylinders and sometime even feeling like two. By Kyneton the weather and the sky lightened up a bit and the car decided to run sweetly on four. We sat on a conservative 80 kph keeping the engine at about 2200 rpm. Oil pressure and engine temperature were good. At Seymour, I moved in the driving seat and Rees Mackay into the passenger seat. All went pretty well for the next two hours with us mainly sticking to the original sections remaining of the old Hume Highway which were scenic, in reasonable condition apart from the occasional gravel sections and with long tree lined straights. We were looking forward to making some video along these old road sections. By Euroa the heavens opened on us again and we drove in torrential rain and were grateful for our wet weather sailing gear which was at least keeping us warm if not completely dry. As well as the rain there were strong blustery side winds.I drove into Wangaratta at 10am, one hour behind our projected time, and stopped at John Kent’s workshop where we were to farewell Pat Ryan and his passenger John Medley. At this stage we were just over an hour behind our projected time, but as a proposed half hour interview at Albury had been cancelled, due to other commitments of the newspaper, we felt we would be able to pick up a bit of time later by sticking to the Freeway.

 Rees Mackey moved into the driving seat with John Lackey in the passenger side and departed north, immediately filling up just around the corner from John Kent’s. We discovered one of the back tyres extremely low in air and attended to that for another ten minutes. Then, as Rees drove onto the road, the car stalled with a failed magneto. And that was the end of the trip. No amount of expert attention would get the magneto to spark and so we towed the car back, attached by tow rope to the back of the trailer, to John Kent’s and there some of the most expert heads in the business attempted to find a solution. The spare magneto was fitted, but in the short time we had available we could find a satisfactory timing solution to the new magneto and so at 2pm with nearly 600kms to go I had no option but to cancel all our forward festivities set for the Art Gallery and the Minister’s welcome at 9.55pm. We loaded the non-runner back onto the trailer and headed for home reaching Dave Stuart’s unit at 8.40pm to the welcome commiserations of a small group of Vauxhall supporters.

We have had a go and very nearly pulled it off showing that the VSCCA can and does attempt complex ventures, usually with success.

2  We have gained international exposure through the front page of the Prewar Car website

3  We gained excellent coverage on ABC On Line which brought several responses, including from a direct descendant of Boyd Edkins, and through country newspapers and the RAC Victoria magazine.

4   We have further enhanced our good friendship with the Victorian VSCC and it must be noted that the organisation at the Melbourne end was very much a joint venture.

5  The Vauxhall Register of the VSCCA is more connected from the event.

6  We have established a contact with the NSW Minister for Roads Duncan Gay which we hope we can build upon this support in the future.

7  The team that went to Melbourne were part of a once in a lifetime event and the camaraderie was very enjoyable.

 I am particularly grateful to John Lackey, Rob Phillips, Rees Mackay, Richard Walton, Pat Ryan in Melbourne, John Medley in Holbrook, who first raised this as an event last year, Rob Rowe, Dave Stuart, John Kent in Wangaratta, Wayne Merton, and especially, to Neil, Brian and Stuart Adams for lending us this very special car 50 Bob and of course to the now very sadly departed Peter Adams for his support of this re-enactment.