National Motoring Heritage Day 20 May 2012

The Veteran Car Club held a display at Langley Park in Perth on 20 May 2012 for National Motoring Heritage Day (http://www.veterancarclubofwa.asn.au/). There were approximately 100 cars on display, which was a little down on expectations as there were quite a few competing automotive and heritage events also on that weekend, including the British Car Day in Gin Gin and the Defence Force Air Show at Pearce so the expected numbers were a little down. Nevertheless it was a good show and there was a lot of public interest.

It was a beautiful sunny day - warm but not too hot. Quite fortunate for this time of year.

It isn't all old cars. The Shelby-Mustang Club, which is an affiliate of the Veteran Car Club, brought along a large contingent.

Shelly and I brought Daisy down. There was an interesting array of cars on display but we were the only German car, apart from Richard's NSU Prinz, which he bought along for a short time.

I was surprised when two older gentlemen came up and advised they either owned or had friends who owned DKWs during the 1930s. One gentleman complained that the wooden chassis on his DKW was weak and began to warp. He'd repaired the chassis frame with lengths of angle iron before eventually disposing of the vehicle. The other gentleman reported how his friend had left his DKW parked on a beach after a night of misadventure and came back the next day to find it was flooded. They tipped the car over on its side and emptied out the water and drove away. We also met a French man and a Kiwi who both recognised the car and came over for a chat, but most people knew nothing about DKW at all.

A magnificent 1958 Cadillac El Dorado. The boot was enormous.

Laurie Mariani's 1959 Dodge Coronet. The car is licensed as a small charter vehicle and is available for weddings.

Beautiful tail fins and brake lights.

A sweet Ford Thunderbird.

1947 Packard Clipper and a 1937 Oldsmobile



1940 Oldsmobile

1938 Plymouth in unrestored condition

1937 Buick

1950s Riley

1946 Sunbeam-Talbot Ten,

1934 Rolls Royce Phantom

1946 Jaguar SS. The venerable Jaguar name we know today was originally the model designation for the sports car manufactured by SS Cars Ltd. SS Cars was an offshoot of the Swallow Sidecar and Coachbuilding company. They split off a subsidiary to build sports cars in 1934, one of which was the Jaguar. After the Second World War the company change its name to Jaguar as SS had unfortunate associations with the Nazi secret police.

1938 Alvis saloon

1954 MG TF. Shelly would love one of these.

Morgan Plus Four. Morgan is one of the few independent car companies remaining. They continue to manufacture their cars by hand in their small factory in Malvern, England. Here's a video from the factory.



I think this is a Triumph Spitfire

The Chevrolet parked next to us has a 3.1 litre engine, more than three times the size of Daisy's meagre 896ccs.

Ford A Coupe

Fords and Chevrolets

A rolling work of art. This beautifully restored Cadillac V8 Type 341A deserved 'best in show.'



Rolls Royce, 1911 Ford T, and a Willys-Knight. The Willy's is in completely original condition and has never been restored.

An unusual marque. Case were famous for their tractors and agricultural machinery but they also built cars between 1911 and 1926. This is a late Case tourer dates from approximately 1925.

Case logo.

A lovely Austin 8

Another unusual marque - a Fargo Truck. Chrysler created the Fargo brand in 1928 and although hardly known in Australia they continued to manufacture them right into the 1970s. The brand was eventually sold off to Turkey, which continue to manufacture them under the name Askam. http://www.allpar.com/old/fargo.html

Fargo badge

I couldn't identify this little moped.


Chrysler racer

Another rare marque - 1925 Bean. http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/Transport/Cars/Bean/Cars.htm

Bean logo



Fiat. There were three old Fiat's present.

Bentley

Another rare marque -1920 Cubitt C1 Tourer, http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/cubitt.htm

1920s Vauxhall

1926 Humber

Samantha the 1929 Austin Seven. This car was found abandoned in a barn in 1964 and then driven around the world between 1965 and 1972. The car covered over 50,000 miles on a journey across 35 countries including Iran, Afghanistan, North and South America and Africa before finally settling in Australia. The owners published a book called 'Seven Years with Samantha.'

Another Austin Seven. These are such lovely little cars.

1914 Trumbrell

1913 Model T racer

1924 Amilcar C4

Amilcar and a 1925 Fiat 501

Fiat

Interestingly, I've been sent a couple of very early photos of my uncles 1913 Nazzaro from the 1930s and it features this same curved bodywork. Perhaps this is a particularly Italian style. I'll put up the photos in the Nazzaro post shortly.

Rover. This car regularly attends Veteran events around Perth.

1910 Brush Model D runabout. It was in a car like this that the first cross Australia journey was made in 1912.

1911 Maxwell. This American veteran was imported by the Veteran Car Club recently and put up for sale to members.

This 1911 Model T is for sale.



A 1913 Model T tourer

1911 Star limousine

1911 Wolsley-Siddley limousine

1910 Fuller buggy. This car was left to the Veteran Section in the original owners will.



1909 Deasy. This marque is related to the Wolsely-Siddley photographed above.

1924 Delage

The extraordinary 1906 De Dion Bouton.

The Military Section had a small display of jeeps.

Goliath Pionier

From Little Things Big Things Grow

The development of the safety bicycle and triporter in the late 19th century was a significant improvement over the handcart. Then, in 1905 the German Brennabor company took the obvious step of placing a small petrol engine on a triporter to create the motorised delivery tricycle. It was an outstanding success and copied by dozens of companies across Europe.

In 1920 in Bremen, Germany, a young and ambitious engineer named Carl Borgward founded a small factory to manufacture car radiators and mud guards. It was a very small venture and Carl was always on the lookout for means of improving productivity. After receiving a complaint from one of his employees about the amount of time wasted delivering components by handcart, he designed a simple motorised cart powered by a 2 horsepower two-stroke engine. The cart was simplicity itself - it had no starter, clutch or gears. The driver simply pushed the vehicle to start it and jumped on as it chugged away. To stop, the driver switched off the engine. It only had one gear - forward!

The 'blitzkarren' or lightening cart was originally built solely for use in Borgward's factory but it clearly filled a niche as soon Borgward was fielding queries from other factory owners where they could get one, so Borgard decided to begin building carts to sell. With an ironic sense for marketing Borward named the tiny cart "Goliath." Selling for 980 Mark, the blitzkarren proved to be a hit and laid the foundation for what would later become the Borgward auto empire.

The Pionier

Borgward was never going to be happy manufacturing auto components and a basic delivery cart. He wanted to build cars. His first designs were far too complex and expensive for his tiny company so he sold them on to the Hansa car company. But the success of the blitzkarren, which Borgward had been improving over the years, gave him enough capital to begin building a car of his own and in 1931 Borgward released his first car - the Goliath Pionier. The Pionier built on the success of the blitzkarren tricycle design. It was powered by a rear mounted JLO two-stroke engine of either 200cc or 250cc capacity which gave it a maximum speed of approximately 30 to 35 miles per hour.

The car was very simply constructed. A steel plate floor sat atop a steel frame chassis. Its semi-streamlined wooden framed body was paneled in plywood covered in leatherette.

The car came in a variety of body styles, such as sedan, roadster, hard and soft tops. Prices ranged from 1080 Deutschemark for the basic model right through to 3980 DM for the delivery truck version. The Pionier was in production from 1931 until 1935 and some 4,000 examples were built.

Although the Pionier was retired as a passenger vehicle, Goliath continued manufacturing delivery tricycles right through into the late 1950s.

The Goliath's success during the hard years of the Great Depression allowed Carl Borgward to buy out the struggling Hansa and Lloyd car companies, which formed the foundation of the Borgward company.

A Rare Survivor

Due to their simple construction, very few Pionier's have actually survived. Additionally, unlike more traditional budget cars, like the contemporary DKW F1, the Pionier tricycle quickly became obsolete and were abandoned.

 This rather poorly preserved example came up for sale in early 2012 in the UK. Almost all the bodywork has rotted away and the rear of the steel floorplate is in very bad condition.

That said, almost all the mechanical parts are there and in reasonable condition.

All up, I think this looked like a reasonable basis for a restoration. With all the critical parts there, it seems to be a matter of replacing the floor plan and installing new coachwork. Okay, I am oversimplifying things a little!

The JLO engine is virtually complete and turns. Some belts are missing. Note also the excellent condition of the underlying chassis.

The Goliath Pionier sedan we photographed in the Munich Technicmuseum in 2006.