THE OLD...

The old car which has sat just where it is now for more years than it had been driven stirred the imagination of the young man, the Great Grandson of the original owner. “I would love to restore that old battler”, (as it had so often been referred to) he said to his Grandfather as they were leaving for a Sunday drive with the Restorers Club. They were in the Veteran registered car that his Grandfather had owned for over 40 years, almost new it was when he bought it.

The Grandfather enjoyed these Sunday outing, especially when he had another driver on board, he didn’t enjoy driving as much as he had in his younger years. He sat in the passenger seat and pondered the thought of his Grandson restoring “the battler”. He knew that old car so well. It had been his father’s first car and he had repaired it many times in his youth. It is older than he, who is now in his 87^th year, it was manufactured the year before he was born. It had served as the family car for 25 years or so until there was no longer a demand for a car by his father and a new utility had been purchased in the early 1950’s.

The old car was not traded, sold or otherwise disposed of, it was given a second life, converted to a tray top utility, it had a few years to serve yet. The Great Grandfather took pride in such things and the conversion was done properly. The bodywork was severed behind the driver’s seat and a motor body works built a neat tray with timber side boards and tail board, the whole vehicle painted with a colour as near the original light brown as could be sourced and finished off with pin striping. It looked pretty flash and one could be forgiven for thinking it was original, not a converted tourer.

The Grandfather thought about the old “battler”, yes everyone called it the “battler”. He could remember trips to town, riding proud in the back seat and that was before he even went to school. He could also remember the back seat being taken out and corn bags with pigs in them being transported to market. He didn’t remember the milk cans being taken to town for the milk run but had heard plenty of stories about that. It was the first car he had ever driven, just after the war. Well he had been behind the wheel a bit earlier than that, but officially was only allowed to drive when he was old enough for a license, you know farm life and all that. He had even gone on his honeymoon in it.

Just when the old car was given the name “the battler” is lost to time but probably after the conversion. Living on the top of the range it surely must have been a battle to get home, especially on a hot summer afternoon with a load of porkers contained in the frame that fitted neatly on the back to contain any livestock. The summer afternoon sun on the deviation that worked its way up around the side of the mountain offered a challenge to many a motor vehicle. Boiling radiators and on the older vehicles those dreaded vapour locks.

The Grandson had done most of the driving and the Grandfather had mostly reminisced on the Sunday outing. As the approached the mountain the Grandfather suggested that he might “tak’er home” up the 3 km climb around the mountain road. As they pulled up at “home” they passed the “battler” sitting as it had for the last 50 years in the makeshift shed between the old petrol or bike shed and the old harness shed or blacksmith shop. The names depended on which generation you were, but the “battler” was under the flat roof and awning that had only ever been a temporary shelter, now rather dilapidated and half fallen down but still providing some shelter from the elements.

The Grandson announced that he had to go and over his shoulder he called to his Grandfather to think about the prospects of a restoral project. Could he ask his mates at the Restorers Club about the possibility of getting parts for the project. “It’s all there” called the Grandfather. Of course tyres would be needed and some timber will have to be replaced. The Grandson left his Grandfather pondering the restoral of the “battler”.

In his 87 years the Grandfather had owned but a few vehicles, farm vehicles don’t count, there had been plenty of those. In fact he still had the first car he bought for his expanding family back in the 50’s and it is still “all there” and sitting in the back of the machinery shed just over 60 years old. He had reluctantly sold the motorbike in the 50’s, a classic it was too. His second car, it was still registered albeit now with Vintage plates, and now 45 years old and the vehicle of the Sunday run with the Restorers Club, that is pretty close to half the age of the “battler”

The Grandfather sat and thought. “That young bloke, not prepared to just take over my Classic, he wants to restore a true vintage car”… “Bloody old battler, mechanical brakes, adjust them and they are all out of adjustment by the time you get to town. The mice have probably eaten all the insulation from the wiring and the chooks log ago scratched all the padding from the seat to make nests. I hope he is going to be satisfied to keep it as a tray top, the back part of the body was buried in the dump down below 50 years ago.”

The Grandfather went to bed, rather tired from his day out, thinking about that old car which had not been moved in 50 years. Tomorrow he would go and have a scratch around it, make a mental list of what there was that could be restored and what might need to the sourced through his contacts at the Restorers Club. He soon drifted off to sleep.

As the hours of the night passed and that time of brain relaxation arrived the Grandfather seen himself sitting in the morning sun on the veranda casually watching the scenery and he noticed a car, no it was an old ute making it way slowly up along the road winding its way up the mountain. It disappeared from sight in behind the ridge opposite. His gaze wandered down the valley and to the work his son had recently been doing clearing away the lantana that thrived there.

Suddenly the Grandfather sat up fully focused on the vehicle that had just appeared on the entrance to his place. “Well look at that” he said, “that’s a Dodge Fast Four, just like the one the old man had. It’s even the same colour and that flat tray is just as the old man had put on it. It is just exactly like the “battler”, just as it was in the 1950’s. Whoever has done that restoration has sure done a fine job. What is he doing all the way out here.

Just then a cow bellowed, it was just coming daylight and the Grandfather stirred. He slowly got up, made his way down the hallway, into the kitchen and looked out the window. He could see the back end of the “battler” just past that jacaranda that had grown up at the corner of the petrol shed.

As he put the kettle on he thought “damned dreams, sometimes they are so real” then “well I had best take a look around that old car, see what is left of it.