The family vehicles over the years

1913 Studebaker

Looking through my photo albums I discovered we had many vehicles over the years so decided I would collect them all so we could see them all in the one place.
Yes it is 1913 but no we didn't have this car as our first car.
My brother is a vintage and veteran car enthusiast but it is the earliest model that some member of the family owned.

From the photos I've inherited the next earliest one was owned by Grandfather Armitstead and here they are in about 1927 going on a picnic in the 1926 Chrysler.

Austin 7 ute and 1937 Chev

Family outings to picnic spots were very popular so here we have Grandfather Laws's 1937 Chev as well as Mum & Dad's first car-the Austin 7 ute -nicknamed Oscar.
The 1937 Chev had a gas producer fitted during World War 2 as petrol was rationed. Instead of feeding the car with petrol you had to load up the gas producer with charcoal to burn to produce the gas. So in 1944 when Mum & Dad got married they had to have someone who could drive this gas producer monster of a car so they could go on their honeymoon to Redcliffe. Dad couldn't do it and neither could my Mum so her brother Bryan had to drive them away on their honeymoon to Redcliffe.
Is Austin a favourite because A is for Armitstead and A for Austin?  Grandfather Armitstead owned an Austin too and it must have been the family favourite brand as having bought the poultry farm and moved to Warwick it wasn't long before Mum & Dad bought the Austin A70 ute to replace Oscar.

Grandfather Armitstead and his Austin

Austin A70

My memories of this one relate to a camping trip we made to Evans Head. There was a canopy over the back so we slept in the back and it was cold so Dad gave us  newspaper to keep us warm. So for the rest of the night if we moved the paper crackled.


As the business progressed we needed a van so the Commer Station Wagon was bought.

Commer station wagon with  my Uncle's Ford Anglia

We all thought it was great as  a grey station wagon but Dad decided it needed jazzing up. Metallic paint was just coming in so it was painted in 2 colours -cream & a beautiful dark metallic green. We were so with it- a 2 toned car with metallic paint.
Somewhere in time we needed something to drive around the farm in so we got  second hand  utes including a Star and a Whippett

Farm ute

and they were followed by a 1932 Hillman ute that I learnt to drive in. I've never lived it down either as I was practising backing I backed over a sapling. This sapling story has been turned into a big tree story by other members of the family. Their Hillman ute must have been a bulldozer to knock over a such a big tree that heir tales included. Our first truck was a VW Matador and it provided transport for our hayride party in 1963

VW Matador on the left.

We are on a picnic again. This time the Ford Zephyr took us there.

After this we purchased a new blue Ford Zephyr station wagon and Of coure we went on picnic in it.

It was great but we didn't seem to have it very long before we had a new Ford Falcon station wagon and this time we had 2 toned again-light blue with a roof of dark blue- not nearly as jazzy as the Commer was BUT this one was automatic. How revolutionary that was for us.

Dad having ridden my bike to the dairy across the road to get our milk supply. Falcon in the background outside the chicken abbattoir.

The business needed a new ute to deliver our dressed poultry to the shops so we got a green Datsun ute in 1962 and purchased an insulated box for the back of it.

Of course it was then time to have another new station wagon and this one turned out to be a lemon and Ford replaced it with a green Falcon station wagon which again was automatic.
This Falcon lasted a long time and did a lot of kilometres for the business-trips to Moree, Lismore Glen Innes, Goondiwindi, Toowoomba, and Stanthorpe as well as social trips for the family.
In 1985 came the last vehicle- a 1984 Toyota Camry hatchback and this was in use until 2008 when Mum at age 86  finally decided she wouldn't drive any more.
As the  chicken business  grew it needed vehicles to deliver the fresh chickens to Lismore, Goondiwindi, Toowomba and Stanthorpe so we had many different trucks too many to mention here except to mention in passing that they included - Bedford, Dyna, Hino,and Nissan and more Datsun utes. This Nissan was used to collect live chickens from other farmers so we could use them in our abattoir.

Nissan

 1928 Model A Ford

In 2010 my brother had had enough of cranking the  1913 Studebaker so he  bought a 1928 Ford Model A ( with electric start)and is an active member of the Model A club in Darwin.