History
This was our family car from 1941 through to 1956. My father traded in a 1937 Chev Ute and this belonged to a Doctor in Narracourte in South Australia. The Vic rego DR 368 dates from about 1941. It didn't see many sealed roads in its life and it would have a blessing that it didn't have the Knee Action front suspension that the up-market Master had. I sort of learnt to drive on it, but age was beginning to catch up with it by then. Putting it in reverse meant making sure the glove box lid was up as it was so worn. The battery fell out of it one day, but with the help of fencing wire Dad connected it up to the handbrake (which didn't work anyway). Dents in all guards caused by gate posts getting in the way and on one memorable day, a truck backed out of a laneway in Portland and the tray took the Chev with me in it (I was about 5) across the street. In those days he let me stand (!) on the front seat while he ambled around the place. No-one would take it as a trade-in for a new Mark 1 Zephyr, so it was used as a second car before being retired as a paddock car and kept our 1929 Essex company. My brother and I would sit on the front guards with our feet on the bumper and us holding on to headlights while Dad drove it round the paddocks. No Workplace Health and Safety in those days! It was always an honest old girl that seemed to survive with the minimum of maintenance. I've always had a soft spot for Chevrolet ever since.
Memories
This pale brown 1938 Chev belonged to a doctor in Naracoorte in SA before Dad bought it in 1941. Victorian registered DR 368, it served our family well until 1956. We were on a farm in Western Victoria and the roads around our place were dirt - the nearest piece of bitumen was about 30 miles away. Luckily it was the Standard model, which meant it had a beam front axle, so for 15 years it ambled around and as far as I remember, we didn't have too much trouble with it. Dad used to let me stand on the front seat as he drove. One day in town, he angle parked it near a laneway, leaving me (aged 5) in the car and while he was in the grocers, a truck backed out. The tray caught the Chev on the front and then back guard and dragged it across the road. Two big dents in the guards which we never bothered to beat out as the metal was too thick.
We were going into Hamilton with Dad driving and had got about six miles down the road and going up a hill when the frame holding the battery beneath the passenger’s side floor corroded through and the battery fell out and bounced along the road under the car. The Chev came to a stop because it had a distributer system and not a magneto. Dad, wearing a hat, tie and sports coat which was what they all wore in those days, walked back and picked up the battery which was leaking acid, put it on the floor and connected it with fencing wire to the hand-brake. Somehow he got it started, possibly with the crank handle and we proceeded to Hamilton.
The other Big Event was on the road to Portland pulling a 4 wheel trailer loaded with supplies for the summer holidays. We had got beyond Heywood when the towbar failed and the trailer tried to overtake the Chev giving it a belt on the right rear corner before Dad managed to bring the thing to a halt. Trailer chains between trailer and car had just been made compulsory and Dad had fitted chains that were up to the job which was surprising, otherwise the trailer would have headed down the road into oncoming traffic. Friends in a 1948 bathtub Packard came by and put us kids and mum in the back seat (it held a football team) and brought us to Portland while Dad was left to organising the shambles on the side of the road. The other big memories were getting the thing bogged. It was bloody heavy with quite narrow wheels and we had no tractor to pull it out. We had to dig it out and pull with wire strainers attached to a stump. Another memory was my older brother driving it out of the garage at the top of the hill prior to heading off to Melbourne when he turned the wheel before the Chev was out of the garage. The corner of the bumper bar caught the garage door frame and pulled the door down onto the bonnet of the Chev, not a good start to the journey.
It was one of the first cars I learnt to drive in as soon as my feet could reach the pedals. The gearbox was so worn, to put it in reverse, I had to reach almost over to the passenger door. Apparently Dad tried to trade it in for a Mark 1 Zephyr, but they wouldn’t accept it, so we ended up with two cars, the Chev being relegated to a paddock car. During droughts, we used to feed oats to the sheep out of the back door while driving along in first gear. After no time there was a healthy crop growing on the running boards. This of course attracted mice who nested in the seats and headlining. This in turn attracted all our Border Collie and Kelpie working dogs who destroyed all the upholstery in one frenzied moment of mayhem. It received virtually no attention and I can still recall that the timing was so far out, when the engine was turned off, the car would run on for ages, quietly grumbling away to itself as we walked away from it.
It ended its days under a tree after someone hit a hidden stump and destroyed putting a hole through the gear-box. It didn’t owe us anything; we three brothers all leant to drive in it, and it was sad to see her disintegrate.
