Lang's Library Recollections
2 months 1 week ago - 2 months 1 week ago #260419
by Lang
Replied by Lang on topic Lang's Library Recollections
While awaiting your Ok I will put up another anyhow.
Two of the great unsung heroes of motoring were a couple of gay Kiwis, Hector MacQuarrie and Dick Mathews.
In 1928 they decided to have an adventure. Looking at a map they discovered no vehicle had ever travelled to Cape York (not even Cooktown by land). They left their sheep farms, went to Sydney and bought a second hand Austin 7 (the only car they could afford). By the time they got to Brisbane one of them was steering OK but he still had not mastered changing gears. The subsequent story written with much humour relates their unbelievable efforts to almost carry the little car (they actually did across the Jardine River) through very rough trackless wastes of Cape York at the time. A truly heroic adventure. The Book is called "Little Wheels".
Just for the hell of it Bev and I repeated the journey a few years back in an identical 1928 Austin 7. The poor little thing nearly shook to bits on the corrugations but nothing like those two great blokes a century earlier.
Here we are 90 years later, same car, same river.
The raft sank and the car was carried on shoulders and poles - you can see the blokes at the back nearly submerged with the shoulder poles. The crocs must have been having the day off!
Two of the great unsung heroes of motoring were a couple of gay Kiwis, Hector MacQuarrie and Dick Mathews.
In 1928 they decided to have an adventure. Looking at a map they discovered no vehicle had ever travelled to Cape York (not even Cooktown by land). They left their sheep farms, went to Sydney and bought a second hand Austin 7 (the only car they could afford). By the time they got to Brisbane one of them was steering OK but he still had not mastered changing gears. The subsequent story written with much humour relates their unbelievable efforts to almost carry the little car (they actually did across the Jardine River) through very rough trackless wastes of Cape York at the time. A truly heroic adventure. The Book is called "Little Wheels".
Just for the hell of it Bev and I repeated the journey a few years back in an identical 1928 Austin 7. The poor little thing nearly shook to bits on the corrugations but nothing like those two great blokes a century earlier.
Here we are 90 years later, same car, same river.
The raft sank and the car was carried on shoulders and poles - you can see the blokes at the back nearly submerged with the shoulder poles. The crocs must have been having the day off!
Last edit: 2 months 1 week ago by Lang.
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2 months 1 week ago - 2 months 1 week ago #260421
by Lang
Replied by Lang on topic Lang's Library Recollections
Now to the good bit.
After going back to the sheep farm in New Zealand the boys soon got itchy feet. So off they went to Sydney, tracked down their old car and set off to be the first vehicle to drive around the world - in an Austin 7!!!!
Loading on to a Burns Philp ship they set off on the first leg across the Pacific to start their land journey in Los Angeles. Unfortunately just near Fiji the prop shaft fell out of the ship and it started to sink. Luckily it was calm and passengers and crew made an orderly exit into lifeboats. Hector had time to pull his camera out and photograph the ship - and the baby Austin descending to the bottom of the ocean. A rescue ship took them to New Zealand where of course they were big news. Lord Nuffield, got wind of the disaster and told his distributor in Auckland to give the boys a new car and load it on the next ship to continue their journey.
The book goes on to relate their fabulous adventures across USA, Europe and right through the Middle East and Asia. Another great easy and humorous read. They are lost to history as the first to drive around the world - in the most unsuitable car, drowned out by the publicity of well supported late comer self-promoters.
attachment=51941]Little Wheels3.jpg[/attachment]
Here they are in Baluchistan where Bev and I were pounded by 55deg heat in the BEAN last year.
After going back to the sheep farm in New Zealand the boys soon got itchy feet. So off they went to Sydney, tracked down their old car and set off to be the first vehicle to drive around the world - in an Austin 7!!!!
Loading on to a Burns Philp ship they set off on the first leg across the Pacific to start their land journey in Los Angeles. Unfortunately just near Fiji the prop shaft fell out of the ship and it started to sink. Luckily it was calm and passengers and crew made an orderly exit into lifeboats. Hector had time to pull his camera out and photograph the ship - and the baby Austin descending to the bottom of the ocean. A rescue ship took them to New Zealand where of course they were big news. Lord Nuffield, got wind of the disaster and told his distributor in Auckland to give the boys a new car and load it on the next ship to continue their journey.
The book goes on to relate their fabulous adventures across USA, Europe and right through the Middle East and Asia. Another great easy and humorous read. They are lost to history as the first to drive around the world - in the most unsuitable car, drowned out by the publicity of well supported late comer self-promoters.
Here they are in Baluchistan where Bev and I were pounded by 55deg heat in the BEAN last year.
Last edit: 2 months 2 weeks ago by Lang.
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2 months 1 week ago - 2 months 1 week ago #260445
by Lang
Replied by Lang on topic Lang's Library Recollections
Todays books are about the most significant motoring adventurers and explorers in history, French Army pilot Louis Audouin-Dubreul and his compatriot Georges-Marie Haardt. All their expeditions were driven by the marketing genius Andre Citroen.
In 1917 the French were not only fighting the Germans but had a major war happening in North Africa as the local tribes rose up against their colonial masters. The French were looking for ways to control the vast Sahara regions and started looking to motor vehicles. They set themselves up with heavy vehicles, initially modified trucks but eventually specialised dual wheel machine gun carriers. There were some heroic expeditions through the rugged Tunisian and Algerian mountains and out onto the vast flat desert before they were defeated by the endless sand seas further south. Several expeditions involved aircraft going ahead to spot the route then landing on the desert to await the trucks with the fuel. A number of pilots died of thirst when their crude and slow (50mph) aircraft were forced down.
Once they got to the sands that was it. The trucks could go no further. Their dream was to be able to go all the way from the Mediterranean coast to Timbuctoo on the southern edge of the Sahara.
At a 1921 dinner in France, Louis sat next to Andre Citroen and complained about the inability to take a vehicle across the Sahara. Immediately Citroen said "My engineer Adolphe Kegresse invented a half-track system before the war when he was chief of the Czar of Russia's garage. He built a very successful half-track suspension for the Czar's Rolls-Royce to travel across snow. If it can go on snow surely it can go on sand, I will talk to him"
So the fun began. Citroen grasped the opportunity for publicity. He already was known for his advertising. Few people now realise that for 15 years the Eiffel Tower carried a huge lit Citroen sign on each side.
Kegresse took the standard little Citroen car and built a wonderful suspension with rubber half-tracks. The two Army officers were basically told to get on with it so they started planning a trial expedition.
The first book is "Across the Sahara by Motor Car". What an adventure by a group of these tiny little vehicles over the uncrossed sands. They sent a couple of Kegresse half-tracks by ship to the south and they drove north as far as they could into the desert leaving fuel dumps for the team travelling towards them. After many trials and tribulations they finally arrived in Timbuctou, the first vehicles to cross the desert. Andre Citroen and his wife was there to meet them in his 4 door car which had been converted by Kegresse into a half-track as well - he had driven across the desert from Dakar in what is now Senegal, no mean feat in itself.
The publicity was huge and was just the precursor to what Citroen, Louis and Georges-Marie really had in mind for these wonderful vehicles.
Here are the vehicles they were battling the sand with before the half-tracks appeared.
In 1917 the French were not only fighting the Germans but had a major war happening in North Africa as the local tribes rose up against their colonial masters. The French were looking for ways to control the vast Sahara regions and started looking to motor vehicles. They set themselves up with heavy vehicles, initially modified trucks but eventually specialised dual wheel machine gun carriers. There were some heroic expeditions through the rugged Tunisian and Algerian mountains and out onto the vast flat desert before they were defeated by the endless sand seas further south. Several expeditions involved aircraft going ahead to spot the route then landing on the desert to await the trucks with the fuel. A number of pilots died of thirst when their crude and slow (50mph) aircraft were forced down.
Once they got to the sands that was it. The trucks could go no further. Their dream was to be able to go all the way from the Mediterranean coast to Timbuctoo on the southern edge of the Sahara.
At a 1921 dinner in France, Louis sat next to Andre Citroen and complained about the inability to take a vehicle across the Sahara. Immediately Citroen said "My engineer Adolphe Kegresse invented a half-track system before the war when he was chief of the Czar of Russia's garage. He built a very successful half-track suspension for the Czar's Rolls-Royce to travel across snow. If it can go on snow surely it can go on sand, I will talk to him"
So the fun began. Citroen grasped the opportunity for publicity. He already was known for his advertising. Few people now realise that for 15 years the Eiffel Tower carried a huge lit Citroen sign on each side.
Kegresse took the standard little Citroen car and built a wonderful suspension with rubber half-tracks. The two Army officers were basically told to get on with it so they started planning a trial expedition.
The first book is "Across the Sahara by Motor Car". What an adventure by a group of these tiny little vehicles over the uncrossed sands. They sent a couple of Kegresse half-tracks by ship to the south and they drove north as far as they could into the desert leaving fuel dumps for the team travelling towards them. After many trials and tribulations they finally arrived in Timbuctou, the first vehicles to cross the desert. Andre Citroen and his wife was there to meet them in his 4 door car which had been converted by Kegresse into a half-track as well - he had driven across the desert from Dakar in what is now Senegal, no mean feat in itself.
The publicity was huge and was just the precursor to what Citroen, Louis and Georges-Marie really had in mind for these wonderful vehicles.
Here are the vehicles they were battling the sand with before the half-tracks appeared.
Last edit: 2 months 1 week ago by Lang.
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