Indy 500 1965 - Jim Clark's Lotus 38

Back in July I posted a small article about a model of the Ferrari P4 prototype sports-racing car and mentioned two others, one being this model - the Lotus 38 crafted by the (now defunct) Carousel 1 company.

Although rear-engined cars had been raced at Indianapolis prior to 1965 - Jack Brabham starting the trend in 1961 in a Formula 1 Cooper - it wasn't until Lotus and Ford mounted a major effort in 1963 that success finally eventuated two years later with renowned Grand Prix driver Jim Clark taking first place in 1965 in the Lotus type 38, seen in model form below. (All images enlarge to full size if clicked).

Generally considered to be one of the most beautifully-proportioned designs ever to race at Indianapolis, the Carousel 1 die-cast model, in 1/8 scale, replicates those lines perfectly and is looked upon as the Holy Grail of the Lotus 38 in model format.

It is superbly crafted and detailed - with even the individual buckles on the racing harness being accurately presented - and is finished in the exact green and yellow livery, complete with all sponsor's decals, as the real car.

Carousel 1 created quite a few models of the cars raced at Indianapolis and they have become highly sought-after since the demise of the business some years ago.
If you are looking for one, they regularly come up on Ebay, which is where I found mine.

Matilda's Last Christmas at Pre-School

My grand-daughter Matilda - who turned 5 in October - had her end-of-year Christmas pageant yesterday with the traditional nativity play, after which she received her "graduation" certificate.
Next year she starts kindergarten and a new chapter in her life's story opens up.

Matilda asked me last week if I would go to watch her in the play so of course I said yes and as well as videoing the performance for posterity - she played the inn-keeper and her lines consisted of "No, no" when Joseph asked for a room - I also took a few photos............

After the play was over there was a bit of a party, with appropriate food, balloons and face-painting.

Reflecting on the past 5 years?

Our peace has been breached!

Well, Mr. Obama has finally set foot in Canberra after two previously-cancelled trips and the usual semi-load of American hyper-crap has been dumped on us.

In a similar fashion to the Bush visit in 2003, we have a permanent - noisy - fighter aircraft circling the ACT for the next 24 hours, just to guard against sneak attacks on the American embassy.
Why can't they simply have an aircraft sitting on the ramp at Fairbairn, fuelled up and ready to go at a moment's notice?

There are 300+ security personnel here!
THREE HUNDRED!!!

At selected intersections throughout the capital sit black, unmarked and unregistered vans.
Why?

Perhaps the most insidious thing is that mobile phone reception around Parliament House/American Embassy has been disrupted.

Like many other Canberrans who don't give a toss about this visit, I will be glad to hear Airforce One depart tomorrow afternoon.

Matilda's Fifth Birthday

My grand-daughter, Matilda, recently celebrated her 5th. birthday and asked for a 10-pin bowling afternoon to be part of her family party.

So we headed off to the Tuggeranong Bowl for a couple of games, during which Matilda would only let Drew (her 27-year old uncle) help her with the targeting and rolling device.

Here's a lovely shot taken by Matilda's mum (my daughter, Lauren - Drew's sister) on her iPhone.
A bit blurry but it captures a nice moment between the two.
(Click on the image for a full-size version)

Canberra to Bonny Hills in 13 episodes

In late July I ventured north for the annual reunion with sister and brother at Bonny Hills.
The following video clips document sections of the trip, from 7:30 AM to about 3:30 PM.
Fortunately the weather was perfect for the whole 700+ kilometres.

MGM, Warner Bros, Paramount and J.Arthur Rank - Eat Your Heart Out!

Over the past couple of years I have travelled frequently into the Snowy Mountains as part of my job - I usually visit Cooma, Jindabyne and Guthega one day per month and then, a week or fortnight later, do an overnighter that takes in Cabramurra, Khancoban, Talbingo and Blowering Dam (near Tumut).

During these drives I occasionally mount the little Canon camcorder inside the windscreen and record some of the region, as seen from the driver's perspective.

In addition to my regular jaunts through the Snowy region I do an annual drive up to Bonny Hills (near Port Macquarie) for a get-together with my siblings. That region - bounded by the Hastings, Camden Haven and Manning rivers - was our stamping ground for 50 years, from early childhood through to senior-citizenship.
So I also do a similar thing - record with the camcorder.

All of those that I have made publicly accessible I have uploaded to You Tube so I thought it about time that I provided links from this blog.

They are in chronological order - most recent first.
Remember that you can view the clip in much larger format by clicking on the YouTube logo, bottom right corner of the screen.

Here are a few from the Snowy Mountains runs...........

P-Plates and V8s - two July milestones.

I've mentioned in a previous post that I had acquired a Holden Monaro CV8Z but at the time didn't have a recent photo of the car and proud new owner, so here is one that was taken just yesterday.
(Click on image for larger view).

But there is another milestone that was reached in July by which I am quite tickled, and that was passing my motorcycle P-plate test.
Here's a shot of me leaning over my Vespa GT200 which is sporting the new plate, which has to be displayed for 6 months, after which it can be removed. In a year's time, all being well, the Provisional restriction will automatically be removed from my licence.

Australian National University (ANU), Canberra.

I had the pleasure of wandering through the campus last Saturday (20th. August) taking some photos as part of my job.

It was a cool, late-winter's morning but the sun broke through the cloud cover most of the time, illuminating the blossom trees and the buildings.

Here's a four-minute slide show of a selection of those pix, set to music, that you might enjoy.
I have tried to provide a counterpoint to the more modern architectural styles of recently-constructed buildings (towards the end of the clip) by starting with some of the original cottages, now offices and schools in their own right.

I hope that you find it enjoyable.
The soundtrack, by-the-way, is "Don't Let Me be Lonely Tonight", by Percy Faith.

Click on the YouTube script in the bottom right-hand corner to view on YouTube and in a larger size.

Is it real or is it........Minichamps, GMP or Carousel 1?

(All photos enlarge when clicked)
For many, many years I've harboured a desire to have really good large-scale models of my favourite racing cars and at the top of the list has always been the Ferrari 330 P4 of 1967, the Tipo 61 "Birdcage" Maserati of 1961 and the Lotus 38 which took Jim Clark to victory in the 1965 Indy 500.
So over the past year I've acquired  each of the cars mentioned above in the form of 1/18th. scale die-cast creations from GMP (the Ferrari), Minicraft (the Maserati) and Carousel 1 (the Lotus).
My photos do not do these models justice - the details are exquisite and have to be seen in person to be fully appreciated. These are display-quality items, jewels of the model-maker's art.

FERRARI P4 SPIDER (open-top)
 (The #6 car raced by Jackie Stewart & Chris Amon at the BOAC 1000kms, Brands Hatch, 1967)

The P4 Ferrari has arguably the most beautiful lines of any sports-prototype racing car ever created. And this model captures those curves perfectly. I fell in love with this car back when I first saw a photograph in the mid 1960s and have held that feeling ever since.

There were four original cars made by Ferrari and I believe that they all exist today. Collectors would pay well into the millions of dollars to own one of these cars.

The model details extend to individual spark-plugs and wires, the seatbelt buckles, foot pedals, mesh over the intake grilles, bungee cords (which actually stretch!) holding the spare wheel in place.

The doors open and close, the steering wheel turns the front wheels and the suspension compresses.

This model is still in production and can be purchased on the internet from several highly reputable retailers in Australia, USA and the UK, to name but three countries.




Next up ...... LOTUS 38
(The #82 car as raced at the Indianapolis 500 by Jim Clark in 1965)

Well, here's proof. Australia is governed by the minorities.

"Carbon Tax Sunday" is now a definite.
On Sunday 10th. July - in two days - Julia Gillard PM will announce that her tax - which she once made a commitment to not introduce (in her pre-election load-of-crap) - will be introduced.

She now has the power to do this because our country is effectively governed by a handful of politicians - several Independents and a couple of Greenies.
They hold the balance of power and in the wheeling-and-dealing that appears to go on 24 hours a day, 7 days per week up at the Big House, these turkeys have it in their power to control what will or will not pass through the house as legislation.

All I can say is that I never dreamed that the future of this country would fall into the hands of a couple of tree-huggers, a would-be cowboy from Queensland and a few wanna-be's.

What a sad day for Australia - and  on the same day that news comes from Europe that the Emissions Trading Scheme in operation there appears to be nothing more than a way for banks to increase their profits and does bugger-all for the environment.

I give up!

Another item ticked off the "Bucket List".

In July 2009, and again in November of that year, my boss very kindly allowed me to take his 2005 Holden Monaro CV8Z - the last iteration of the model - away for the weekend.
The first trip was to Bonny Hills near Port Macquarie and the second was a drive up to paradise - also known as Yamba - on the far north coast of NSW.

When I returned from that first weekend I asked that if ever he were to contemplate selling the car to please let me know first so I could sell my children and pets for medical experiments in order to raise the finances to make the purchase!

Very recently the opportunity came up to buy the Monaro and I am delighted to say that it now resides in my garage; the children and pets are fine and medical science will have to do without them.

I have really liked the Holden Monaro ever since this reincarnation of the 1960s/1970s GM-H icon was first mooted (it was a "concept" design) back in 1998 at the Sydney Motor Show, knowing that of all my dream cars it was the one most likely to be fulfilled. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, E-Type Jaguars and their ilk had a snowball's chance in Hell of ever sitting in my driveway, but there was always a possibility that the Monaro could one day satisfy my desire to own it.

What makes the pleasure even greater is the fact that it is the CV8Z and the cherry on top of the cake is that it is in "Fusion", the striking metallic gold/orange livery and black/gold upholstery. There are only (approx) 250 of this combination.

The "Zed" was the Monaro's swan-song and had a limited run of (initially) 1,200 units. This was increased by another 400 units before GM-H closed the production line in December 2005.

It's a fabulous machine and I'm tickled pink to be fortunate in finally owning one - this one in particular.

And they're hitting us with a "Carbon Tax".....?

This makes whatever we Australians will push into the atmosphere over the next 100 years look piddling by comparison.........(Click on for larger image).

Have a look at these images from the Boston Globe "Big Picture" and, when finished with the Chilean volcano, they have a bunch of pix of the Icelandic volcano that you can be impressed by, as well.

Now, would Julia Gillard and her henchmen/women, and all the advocates of a Carbon Tax, please explain to me one more time just how it will benefit we Aussies in particular and the planet in general?

Sydney to Perth....1975 style

(Click on any image for a much larger view)

I was browsing some 35-year old 35mm slides the other day (hmmm, that's 1mm for every year!) and scanned a few of them that related to our (wife and I) trip from Sydney to Perth and return in April/May of 1975.

We had bought a new Honda Civic in 1974 and I added a few minor things to it before the trip, such as driving/fog lights and an insect/bird screen across the front.
A roof-rack carried our two-man tent and sundries that could get wet without causing any problem.

Inside we had our clothes, sleeping bags and other odds and sods. We even bought a Sharp cassette/radio unit as we knew that radio reception in the vastness of South Australia would be limited to the ABC. One new tape that we bought was the Wings album "Band On The Run", which we had on LP.

The photo above shows the shiny car as we made a comfort stop somewhere west of Mildura.

We had planned the drive across to take six days - the first was Sydney to Hay, the second Hay to Adelaide, the third was Adelaide to Ceduna, the fourth Ceduna to Eucla (WA border), the fifth then from Eucla to Norseman and the last from Norseman north through Kambalda and west to Perth.

The intent was to camp in the tent each night but that fell by the wayside at Adelaide (motel) and Ceduna (motel).

Today (and from about 1977) that trip would take in 4,100 kilometres but back then the Eyre Highway followed a more inland route after leaving Ceduna and did not approach the coast again until arriving at Eucla, on the SA/WA border.
Back in 1975 we drove considerably further and it included about 400 kms of rough dirt (and limestone rocks) road and that road was covered with muddy water in many areas due to heavy rains through the "centre" over previous weeks.

Here's the car on one of those stretches, somewhere between Bookabie and Eucla.
Note the stretches of water on either side of the road, the fact that it is wider than a dual-carriageway express-way and the limestone rocks.
The reason the surface is so wide is that when it became damaged by the trucks then the road maintenance gangs simply graded another bit along the side!

The Civic is looking very second-hand but I still managed to strike a cavalier pose for my wife of two years.

Here's the sign erected near Yalata that highlights the fact that a new southern alignment is under construction........

We drove alongside this new bit for some distance before it slipped away to the south and we veered more northward.
Very frustrating, seeing that bitumen surface going to waste....although it was being used by a couple of motorcyclists who passed us.

As you can see on the sign, the section from Ceduna to Bookabie had been resurfaced and the dirt continued onwards from Bookabie.

Another shot of the Honda. We are pretty sure that we never completely rid it of the muddy bull-dust. It got into every crevice. The engine compartment was covered in it, but she never missed a beat.

When we got back to Sydney four weeks later we spent a whole day cleaning it but I'm sure that whoever bought it after we traded it in 1978 bought a Civic with Nullarbor Plain mud in it somewhere!

After enduring what was almost a full day of crap road it was a blessing to finally arrive in Western Australia and feel the smoothness and quiet of a bitumen road surface under our tyres once again.
We weren't the only people to have felt the same way, as evidenced by the graffiti on the sign.....

There wasn't much at Eucla in 1975......a service station and a camping ground, which is where we stayed for the night.
We could have pushed on to Norseman but it was too far away and we were both tired and just wanted to relax, have something to eat and drink before starting the Western Australian section the next day.

So far our Big Adventure had taken us through three States (including NSW) and we had travelled further west than either of us had been before.
And it was an adventure back then - you could buy a sticker which proudly proclaimed "I Crossed The Nullarbor" and depicted the dirt-road route. I still have that sticker.

So we parked the car and erected the tent. I think I even gave the Honda a cursory wash with a bucket of water, just to get the glass areas clean, at least.

In the background, the blue of the sea in the Great Australian Bight as the sun starts to set in the west (to right of the photo).

That little tent was a beaut. It didn't take long to put up or take down and it also came with a zip-in floor and a separate sleeping "tent-within-a-tent".
We only ever needed that once, at Norseman, where a scorpion was found traipsing across the gravel (no grass at Norseman caravan park!). But did we bother to put it up? No!
However, we caught the scorpion and consigned it to its ancestors.

We eventually arrived in Perth, spent a lovely time at Scarborough beach, caught up with friends (my wife's) and then came time to turn around and head back east.

However, neither of us were really terribly keen about doing that stretch from Eucla back to Ceduna and we also needed to have some attention paid to the car, which, we had been informed when it was serviced, might have a burnt valve. (Bad fuel somewhere?)

So we made the decision to blow our reserves by travelling on the "Trans-Australia Express", a similar service to that of the "Indian Pacific" but which travelled between Perth and Port Pirie, also on the standard-gauge line.
In order to save a little, we also decided to drive from Perth to Kalgoorlie and catch the train from that point, and that is what we did, spending a night in the city whose name is synonymous with "gold".


 The "Trans-Aussie" left Kalgoorlie in the morning, after breakfast (we stayed in one of Kalgoorlie's many hotels) and the afternoon before I had to take the Civic to the station to be loaded onto a flatcar that would be added to a freight train leaving that night.
This meant that, when we arrived in Port Pirie two day's hence, the Honda would be waiting for us in the car park, ready to resume the journey.

We spent a full day, a night and then half the following day on the train, travelling First Class.
It was the BEST time of the entire trip......totally relaxing, with wonderful service and facilities and fabulous views from the panoramic windows.
I was particularly taken by this sight at one of the little fly-speck railway locations.........

Now if that isn't quaint then I don't know what is!
A rotary clothesline on a flatcar, which also hosts a shed which, I can only assume, is the laundry.
This was taken at Forrest, or somewhere similar.

There were (are?) many such sidings along the railway line traversing the Nullarbor, homes to the workers and families who maintain the rails and infrastructure.

All too soon our train journey seemed to draw to a close but, before it did, I snapped the following shot as the train paused at Port Augusta for a crew change. That is Shirley (wife) sitting on the bench further down the platform.

The locomotive CL1 is finished in the original Commonwealth Railways maroon & silver livery and is still in existence today was scrapped after a collision & fire in 1997.
Stretched out behind her are the stainless steel carriages of the same design used back then on the Southern Aurora (1962 - 1986) and also the relatively new Indian Pacific (service commenced in 1970).

A great trip, many good memories. I'd love to do it again, but this time on the new Eyre Highway!

Yellow Days - the colours of Autumn in our Canberra garden

 

This is the last month of Autumn for 2011 and today was a beautiful sunny, blue-sky, no wind kind of day. The trees in our front yard have reached the peak of their colours; from now on they will lose their leaves very quickly and in a week or so their branches will be bare.

So I armed myself with my camera (Sony DSC 717) and ventured into the shrubbery, accompanied by several birds who were plucking the last of the fruit off the Crab-apple tree.

Above is a YouTube montage of those shots set to "Yellow Days", chosen because I thought it was an appropriate piece to use.
You can watch it in a larger format by clicking on the YouTube wording in the bottom right-hand side of the little screen above.

Videos from around the region.

Over the past couple of months I have undertaken some work-related trips into the Snowy Mountains and decided to take some "on the road" video-clips.

I mounted my little Canon SD cam-corder on a special camera mount that sucks itself onto the windscreen, sitting just above the dashboard next to the A-pillar on the driver's side. It's quite unobtrusive, probably less so than a GPS unit stuck in the middle of the 'screen.

My journeys take me from Canberra to Cooma, Jindabyne, Guthega and return and also, on the other side, from Canberra out through Murrumbateman, down the Hume to Gundagai, to Tumut, Blowering, Talbingo, Cabramurra, Khancoban, Tumbarumba, Batlow and back to Canberra via Tumut and Gundagai once again.

So I've collected these recordings of trips since last December, editing them into smaller clips.

You can find them on YouTube by searching for hcrun (or Snowy Hydro) and, as a sample, here's a very quick clip from the trip I did on the 15th. & 16th. December.............



My photogenic grand-daughter

All images enlarge when clicked

I thought I'd kick off 2011 with a couple of shots of my grand-daughter, Matilda, who is blessed with not only a beautiful  face but also a four-year olds irrepressible energy.
But there were moments, on Christmas Day and again on Boxing Day, when she became almost adult in her demeanour and posture, as the following images will show:-

After finishing her Christmas pudding, Matilda contemplates what she will have next.
Will it be more pudding, or perhaps an after-dinner mint?  Hmmmmm.

The following shot was taken as she reclined on our lounge on Boxing Day, playing a game on her mothers iPhone.

Ahhhh, the wonders of childhood. Oh, to be four again!