I joined the Dandenong Valley Historic Car Club in March 2001 however my association with Austin Sevens goes back to 1943 when my Father bought "MYRTLE" from a family friend's son for 20 pounds I taught myself to drive in her at the age of 14, round the tracks and paddocks of then rural Mount Eliza, often to Dad's displeasure.

In 1948 Dad aspired to better things and bought an army disposals Austin 10 utility and I started driving Myrtle seriously owing to the reluctance of girl friend's mothers to their daughters occupying the pillion seat of my motorbikes. When I went for my licence in 1950 Dad and I decided Myrtle was not the most impressive vehicle to front up in, so I was allowed to drive for only the 2nd time, his beaut new Renault 760. The first trip round the street circuit in Frankston I did everything wrong but when I explained to the policeman I had been driving a Baby Austin for the past 2 years j immediately understood. We went around a 2nd time without any hick-ups and I became legal.

Myrtle -died of exhaustion and I bought "SNIFTER" for 50 pounds. Snifter had been a 1931 fabric bodied sedan (or so I was told) that had an unfortunate experience with a train, the remains of the body were discarded and replaced with that of a 1929 standard sports. The wheel base was stretched using a 'Z' plate on the front spring, and lowered by flattening the rear springs. I called it Snifter after a cartoon dog in the MAN magazine who went around with its nose close to the ground and left little puddles in odd places. It had such unique features as a floor of palings, and army disposals single filament sealed beam jeep headlights which I "dimmed" by introducing a resistance made: of a length of jug element wire. The .lower panel of the tail was missing. I fitted an Amal type 4 motor bike carburetor. It was resplendent in a coat of surprisingly glossy green paving paint and transfers of sleepy Mexicans doing little or nothing on each door! After driving it to Canberra I aspired to a bigger thing and sold it there for 75 pounds and bought "NUFFIN" in 1952.

"NUFFIN" cost me 150 pounds. It was a 1937 Ruby hard top utility. It was called Nuffin because it was so heavy I reckoned it was fully loaded with nuffin in it! It was a good go’er except for a few missing teeth on the 2nd and the cluster gears. The story of my repairing said gearbox is one of a steep learning curve and five attempts at re-assembly on the floor of a hostel room. I drove Nuffin back and forth between Canberra where I was working, and Mount Eliza I until I discovered the chassis was cracking, about which time the local 'Friendly Electrolux Man' was silly enough to offer to buy it.

For a while I went back to a motorbike (L.E. Velocette), but unmade roads, Melbourne's weather, a prospective mother-in -law, and the bike being a lemon, made 4 wheels a good idea again so I scrapped it and invested 20 pounds in "HYRTLE".

Hyrtle was Myrtle's twin, except for being reddish-brown, and a broken crankshaft, also the rear windows-come-side curtains had wooden frames and sliding glass! Myrtle was by this time slowly sinking into the ground under a gum tree on the block of land next door. I built one motor out of the two, finished courting Anne, and we went on our honeymoon in it. I converted the M.L. magneto to coil ignition and made an “army disposals” rot-proof canvas hood for it, I put a flap in the back to enable me to put heavy things.on the back seat, such as two four gallon tins full of nuts and bolts. (50 years later I am still using them).

Not long after Anne and I were married, I bought another 1928 Chummy for the magic sum of 20 pounds, intending to use it for spares. Myrtle by this time had gone to God, but I still have her radiator and its shell. This one was not a goer and had been used as a cubby by a family of numerous ankle biters. I never did anything with it because Hyrtle was so reliable. I sold it to a work mate for the magic sum of 20 pounds for his 14 year old son to fiddle with to learn about cars.

I was offered a swap. A 1935 Austin Seven Tourer for Hyrtle, and, as it looked bigger and better than the chummy I took it. The couple who were authors knew nothing about cars, had bought the “Lemon” as we called it from a Frankston car yard for 65 pounds. It played up from the moment they got it and the car yard refused to have any of it. I thought with my experience I would be able to fix it. While checking the brakes I found the rear bearing nuts had been welded on! The brakes were worn out, and the wiring was 'stuffed'. Never the less I decided to persist until the first morning I tried to drive it to work at Dandenong, 12 miles from home, there was a bang from the motor which kept running but the oil pressure dropped to zero. A work mate towed me home that night. The cylinder block was loose and had lifted enough to allow a cord ring to slip out and rip the bottom off a piston. A piece of the ring had found it's way into the oil pump and sheared off the woodruff key. That was the last straw. I went to the car yard and accused them of selling defective cars. When they saw I was fair dinkum and had contacts in the constabulary they relented and paid me the 65 pounds they'd received for the car from the couple. I very smartly looked for, and found, another A-7.

The "LITTLE BUS" was a 1935 Ruby sedan, which turned out to be a reliable, comfortable, solid little work horse. I did all the usual terrible things with it, towing huge loads on Myrtle's trailer, thrashing it in a gymkhana, and on one occasion towing a neighbor's 6 ft x 5 ft trailer to Mallacoota and back. Anne and I camped on the common there for a few days. The last night it rained very heavily so the unsealed road to the Princes Highway was slippery clay. By the time we had slithered the 18 miles to the bitumen the speedo was showing 25! All this abuse came at a price such as a broken crankshaft, stripped timing gear, and the middle of a kingpin sheared out. I slept in it one night and it took me days to straighten out again. It was with great reluctance in 1958 we decided to trade the Little Bus in on our first Holden because by then we had the twins, and lifting them in the twin pram body into the back of the two door Ruby had become a health hazard.

There followed a pause in my Austin Seven association.

In 1965 I noticed Austin Sevens were getting thin on the roads where as they had been as plentiful as fleas on a dog. I advertised for one or parts there-of, and bought a heap of bits including a couple of chassis, 3 motors, 3 gearboxes, axles, etc, and a large amount of rust for 65 pounds, and did nothing with them for 17 years. Then something stirred in me and I restored the front and back axles and springs. At this point I met Lionel Howard junior, who persuaded me to join the Austin Seven Club. I answered an in their magazine “The Light Shaft” and bought battered remains of Tootle in 1983.

"TOOTLE", a 1928 chummy tourer, made (his, her, or it's) debut at the 1992 Austin Seven Canberra Hub Rally under the name of “Mouse” but somehow that didn't click (or squeak) with “She who must be obeyed” so we looked for another nameto rhyme with Myrtle and Hyrtle. The nearest we could get was Spurtle which is a stick the Scots use to stir porridge. But no one seemed to know that, so it was a no goer. Then we realized how often we were saying "We tootled here”, and “we tootled there" so that was near enough to a rhyme, and "TOOTLE" it became.

When I assembled Tootle's motor it was only a 'lash-up' for the 1992 Rally and I would have been happy get 500 miles out of it. Ten years and 10,000 miles later it struggled on, refusing to die, and caused me immense embarrassment whenever we had to climb anything more challenging than a speed hump. Finally in 2003 I bit the bullet and gave it a triple bypass to-wit, a new radiator, a fully reconditioned motor, and reconditioned and modified gearbox. All I have to do now is finish the interior, and worry about the noisy tired differential.