Memories.
In June 1995 some members of the Vintage Drivers Club members demonstrated the assembly of a “T” Model Ford on the Daryl Somers show, “Hey, Hey It’s Saturday” in 28.5 seconds.
I remember that.
Do You???
One of the VDC team of assemblers was Peter Gabe, who kindly sent me this article on how the event came to be, and it is from the Vintage Drivers
Club newsletter of June 1995
HEY HEY IT’S A FORD
I suggested to the Spectacular committee that we could
assemble a “T” Model Ford, only to be greeted by stunned silence. Several weeks later I came across Lyle
Drysdale who explained that he still had the car that we used for the Don Lane
Show in 1977.
Now with car available I again put the idea to the
Spectacular Committee and guess what?
The stunned silence turned into a luke warm response. Undaunted I pressed on and hassled Lyle for
several weeks until one day Lyle rang to say that the Ford’s motor was totally
seized. Things looked pretty grim. Then out of the blue Lyle turned up with
Andrew Brown’s 1922 “T” Model – exactly what we needed.
I assembled a team and we started work. For weeks on end we never even managed a full
assembly and as time passed we achieved 45 seconds then 34 seconds then 30
seconds. The car was restored and we
progressed with Jack Vears making lifting lugs and bushes, Bill Eldridge
painting wheels and making brackets, Wes Wilkinson making numerous speed nuts,
support fittings and task lists for each member of the team.
Wes took control of team motivation, made videos to show us
where time was being lost and worked out the fastest way of doing each
task. John Buchanan and I made a large
stop watch on a sandwich board, Marc Middleton and I painted the radiator.
Marc and Wes pushed on with publicity and Wes finally made
the breakthrough with a contact at Channel 9 for “Hey, Hey it’s Saturday”. Wes also organized sponsorship of the overalls
and transporting of the car to Channel 9.
On 27 May 1995 it finally all happened when Daryl Somers
showed our team at work on National T.V. and announced our time of 28.5 seconds
– Wow!
In all, a great team effort.
Over the last three months or so the following people were on the team:-
Hey, Hey.
Kevin Hibbert, Doug Sterry, Wes Wilkinson, Marc Middleton, Bill Eldridge, Ralph Quaine, Peter Gabe, Norm Clark, Peter Jowett and Dianne Wilkinson (clock).
Others involved were Lindsay Truman, Russell Clough, Daryl
Leslie, John Shorland, Peter Buszko, and Lyle Drysdale.
Subsequent to the demonstration on the Daryl Somers Show,
the assembly of the “T” Model was carried out at the Vintage Drivers Club’s
Spectacular Swap Meet at the Fresh Centre.
Peter Gabe
An audio/visual disc made included the following:-
1.
Assembly of the car in 28.5 seconds on the Daryl Somers
Show (Hey, Hey It’s Saturday).
2.
Assembly in slow motion.
3.
The practice sessions in the garage at Mulgrave. It’s interesting to note that in the initial two
sessions the team couldn’t manage to assemble the car at all.
Ray's comment.
"They all look so young back in 1995"
I remember it well. Whilst I didn't see it on TV, I was there and watched in amazement in 1995 at the Vintage Drivers Club’s Spectacular Swap Meet at the Fresh Centre.
ReplyDeleteThere was a good crowd and a few side bets that it couldn't be done.. They lost their money.
One of our local club members passed away last week and we were reminiscing at the wake about the early days and about half a dozen of us remembered the Model "T" assembly that day.
Thanks for the memories.
Rick Cove