| Author | Message | ||
     Stephe Boddice Experienced User Username: stephe_boddice Post Number: 13 Registered: 2-2005 |
This is just an interested enquiry from a nosey pom... Is there any information available regarding the number of pre-war R-R cars in Australia? At the time of writing there are 4046 postings on the new Tech Forum relating to postwar cars yet only 61 for those built pre-war. I am sure this cannot reflect the actual populations. Are the pre-war owners just Luddites who eschew this new-fangled Interweb? Tongue-in-cheek, SB | ||
| Bill Coburn Grand Master Username: bill_coburn Post Number: 427 Registered: 4-2003 |
Gosh Stephe You certainly picked the scab of the sore that time. A quick count of our last Aussie directory gives a figure of some 320 odd pre-war cars including some 17 of your beloved PIII's and 840 post war. I would add 20% to that figure for the actual number of cars in the country. As to the owners there is a whole PhD to be awarded for somebody who would study them. I suspect the majority of pre war owners are well into their second half century and probably as you say eschew these mysterious forms of communication. I also guess that given the age of the cars all that could ever go wrong with the cars has done so and there is nothing left to share with other owners that hasn't been argued before. And while I have the floor, as wonderful as this web site is, it still grates when somebody starts a thread and small platoons of others contribute and we never hear again from the originator. I am not advocating effusive thankyou notes but just an acknowledgement might help. But comparing contributions from the two 'groups' it is a sore point with many post-war owners that club formal communications and resources can devote so much space and effort to learned treatises on the preferable shank length of a bolt and yet by far the most populous section of the club with their post-war cars particularly SY and SZ examples can't find out how to make their chariots go! | ||
| Richard Treacy Grand Master Username: richard_treacy Post Number: 787 Registered: 4-2003 |
Bill and Stephe, I would be surprised if only 20% or so of RR/B cars are not owned by club members and therefore not on the club books: I would guess on about half or even more, so I feel the figures that you mention are conservative. There is even a large proportion of Australians who are forum users but not members. I suspect that a higher proportion of pre-war car owners are members than post-war car owners. On the number of postings for types of vehicles, I suggest it is related to component count, complexity and commonality. As post-war models are mostly standard cars and not just chassis, there is far more common knowledge to talk about with the newer cars. In the serene world of the PIII, there are only a handful of people worldwide able to comment on the hardness of a joggle pin. On a Silver Shadow, there are thousands who, out of necessity, sadly know more about hydraulics than they would ever have wished to have learned. Also, as many later cars are daily drivers or used rather more regularly than the earlier ones, the urgency to rectify is greater, and served rapidy by the Forums. Feedback would indeed be welcome. Especially, a statement like "You blighter. You wasted my time and money. The problem was really xyz." would add value even more than a "Thanks mate. That fixed it.". RT. | ||
| Bill Coburn Grand Master Username: bill_coburn Post Number: 428 Registered: 4-2003 |
Interesting Richard. I have never seen a figure of how many SY and SZ cars have come into this country even through the distributors has anyone??? Another bitch I have and have put it to delegates to put it to the Federal Council is to keep track of prewar cars that have landed on our shores. Nobody seems to give a stuff on this matter. I have absolutley no empathy with Ghosts et al but do recognise their iconic value. Surely it would not be too much trouble or expense to pop the fact that chassis XYZ had gone to the Maldives. I instance the World's last 30HP which South Australian members found and which went via several owners in Europe and now has disappeared. It is a puzzlement. If a non member in Gundaroo found a Legalimit in a barn would it make the Club register - I very much doubt it. The chassis registers to my mind have devolved into a deBretts of Rolls-Roycerie. Pages on which ones name should appear. Stuff the cars as long as my name is there. Whew I feel better already! | ||
| Chris Gillings Frequent User Username: chrisg Post Number: 30 Registered: 5-2001 |
Oh Bill, what will we do with you?  I'll not take you to task on your lack of empathy with the very finest of motor cars (have you driven one lately? Call me when you're next in Sydney) but your other comments implore a response. You have to keep in mind that the Club has no control over what happens to any vehicle. Whenever a car moves beyond its ken - as so often happens - it's not possible to report on its fate. This happens more often to internationally desirable pre-war cars and frequently the new owner wishes to remain anonymous. Thus the car's destination may also be unknown. I'm not sure if we're talking about the same car, but I believe Kennedy owns the 30HP now. It was on stage at a formal RREC dinner in Scotland in 1997. (Or was it a 10HP?) Any rumour of a Legalimit would certainly leak - like a bloody great sieve that would let a PIII through! I'm at a loss trying to see from where your comment about the registers arises: are RROC(A) members that conceited, in your opinion? My experience of my fellow Club members is mostly the opposite. Even though I'm not actively involved in any registers I believe they are serving their stated purpose. Please don't ignore the contribution they are making. | ||
| Bill Coburn Grand Master Username: bill_coburn Post Number: 429 Registered: 4-2003 |
Chris I certainly don't. Separately I much appreciate your rating assessment of my own utility value to the Club but perhaps you are not aware that as Federal Secretary I almost drove Patrick Kane-White almost to a nervous breakdown to complete the Club's very first register which he laboriously typed himself. His doctor actually rang me to tell me to tell Patrick to stop it. Anyway it stopped but was eventually published. As you know we used to have some ridiculous requirement under the Constitution to offer the car to members before flogging it to anyone else. As far as I know that was studiously ignored. If I was dictator ( an ambition I sometimes covet) I would have a National register fed by the various State offices such that every owner of an RR or B would have to account for the car as long as it was in his care and to advise of its disposal and new owner. Penalty of not complying - public flogging at the next Federal Rally! When we were putting the very first register together the frequent reaction we got from owners was who wants to know and why. I started to wonder whether it was paranoia or by happenchance we had lit on some grand money laundering scheme. The USA had had Registers since Noah so I really could not see the problem. Being a little realistic (difficult for me) when I see an old bloke fall out of a Ghost at Woolies' car park I would like to go up to him and say which one is it (assuming it is not on Chassis Plate) who are you and could I have contact details. I would then send it to the Registrar and hopefully he would record it somewhere. Some years ago I chanced upon Francis James' Phantom II in a shed out the back of NSW. It is probably still there - is anybody interested - I doubt it. But it is part of our automotive heritage and should be recorded just as much as Tom Roberts' paintings or Sydney Long's etchings. And for an instance I had forgotten I have a couple of the latter. By chance I had a curator of artwork in the house some years ago and she spotted these works. Took a quiet note and some days later rang me to say would I mind lending them to the National Gallery for recording. They are are part of the National heritage and of course I agreed. They know where they are which if they really want them they have a starting point. As to the 30HP I think you will find the exhibition was the 10 HP which resides in a London museum. No I am not saying that the owners are conceited, simply that if we are really dinkum about the cars and their providential value we should make some effort to keep track of them and not kid ourselves that we are doing this by publishing lists of members who happen to have cars. That, my friend, would appear to be arse about to our objectives. Don't worry I am quite mad, I'll go and have another Scotch!! PS. As to driving a Ghost the oldest RR I have driven is Malcolm John's PII with the Weyman body. The delight of handling a crash gearbox again almost occasioned me tumescence given that I had instructed drivers in the Army for countless years in the intricacies of the mechanisms. You keep promising - I'll make it one day I hope. I may even give you the Spur and disappear - a risk you should seriously consider!!! See you at the evening pill issue!!! Cheers, BBC | ||
| Peter Colwell New User Username: peter_colwell Post Number: 6 Registered: 3-2005 |
This story is not really Rolls Royce related but it is interesting in terms of how cars may disappear for a lifetime and then turn up again. It concerns a 1920 Vauxhall 30/98, a very sporty car in its day. The original owner sold it in about 1930, and no more history was known. But he kept its original NSW number plate 137, which was handed down to his son, then to his widow. Forward 74 years, to 2004. The above-mentioned widow, - ie. daughter-in-law of the original owner, - received a phone call from an unknown stranger; "I have recently purchased and restored a Vauxhall 30/98, which was originally registered nsw 137, are you connected with the car"? Of course the lady was able to supply some old photos, and a lot of history of the car. A meeting was arranged, a ride in the superbly restored Vauxhall etc. Photos were taken with the plate 137 temporarily in place. The plate now proudly graces a M***B*** owned by yours truly, who is distantly related to above-mentioned widow lady. The Vauxhall is in good hands, and has had a trip back to England for a rally. Peter | ||
| Stephe Boddice Experienced User Username: stephe_boddice Post Number: 14 Registered: 2-2005 |
Sorry to interupt all of these reminiscences and acrimonious grenades being lobbed over neighbourly fences but do I deduce from the foregoing that the answer to the original question is a resounding err... NO ? What a long sentence! T-i-c SB | ||
| Richard Treacy Grand Master Username: richard_treacy Post Number: 788 Registered: 4-2003 |
But Stephe, Then again, there is Tom C. Clarke, an Englishman born in the then colonial Singapore in 1946 but raised in Australia. He moved to England in 1970. He then took the position of Technical Librarian at Rolls-Royce Motors Limited. His dedication to Rolls-Royce led him to compile the complete saga of the Wraith in 1986. More recently, the incredibily well researched history of Rolls-Royce in Australia 'Rolls-Royce and Bentley, In a Sunburnt Country', 1999, puts us all to shame. It covers new local deliveries and secondhand imports, along with dealer and owner histories. I have a copy, and believe that there is an update now in print. His entry on my R-Type is accurate. RT. | ||
| Glenn Amer New User Username: recordo Post Number: 9 Registered: 4-2005 |
Dear Bill, Sid Long is one of the great etchers! You are lucky to have his work. Regards, Glenn. | ||
| Stephe Boddice Experienced User Username: stephe_boddice Post Number: 15 Registered: 2-2005 |
Richard, Thank you for the info - I will try and track down a copy. SB | ||
| Peter Colwell New User Username: peter_colwell Post Number: 7 Registered: 3-2005 |
For anyone who might be seeking a copy of the book, Rolls Royce and Bentley, In Sunburnt Country, I suggest an enquiry to the Pitstop bookshop in Perth WA. http://www.pitstop.net.au e-mail: info@pitstop.net.au Andrew Stevens there is very helpful. Peter} |
