My son wanted to invest some money into something. He didn’t know what.
We discussed it and spoke about it many times, but he couldn’t decide what to do.
One day he came home from work and said, “I think I know what to spend some money on”. He showed me an ad in the Herald-Sun. It wasn’t in the normal advertising pages of the Newspaper, it was a small picture at the bottom of about page 5. The picture was of an old Holden, a 48-215, more commonly known as an FX. It was priced at $4000.00 at a car yard, Patterson Cheney in Ballarat Road Sunshine.
I was never overly interested in cars, especially old ones. I had bought a few over the years, but all second hand and not that expensive. I tinkered with some of them, mainly servicing them and keeping them roadworthy.
My mate and I took the car for a short distance along Ballarat Road to try it out. We both decided the steering felt a bit strange and concluded that the left-hand side front wheel had a problem, possibly a faulty bearing.
We returned the car to the yard and said we were interested in purchasing the car. They agreed to fix the bearing, give the car a full roadworthy check, and even clean it. We paid a small deposit, returning the next day to finalise payment. The car was registered in my name, (my son was still too young to drive at this time) and we drove the vehicle home.
Coming from England in 1967, I never knew anything about Australian cars, but it didn’t take long to learn that our car was a piece of Australian history. Well it was still my son’s car, but unfortunately, he couldn’t drive it yet, so it was like, my car. I insured the car with Shannon’s Insurance who specialised in older type cars at the time. We learnt that this particular car was made in September 1952, just 3 months older than myself. I was younger than my car. This was even mentioned at my Fiftieth Birthday celebration in December 1992 by the Master of Ceremonies, who said I was the only person he knew with a car older than the owner.
The car was “Lido” Beige in colour. It had very skinny wheels, a very old “Grey” motor and Dark Green full leather seats. Bench seats, which could carry 'Three in the Front' and 'Three in the Back'. Perfect for a family of Six.
Our four kids posed like Royalty on our trips out, waving like the royals in their big limousines. They would wave back to and show off the car to people who took an interest in it. They were all very proud to be part of a piece of Australian history.
This was a “Life Changing” event for all of us.
Phil Hughes
February 2024