Sometimes persistence really does pay off.
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Jeremy Clark (Jack) was chasing old Holden parts for an HR project five or six years ago.
Knowing that there had to be some old cars and parts on properties around the Central West, Jack and his partner Shirley Edwards printed out flyers and dropped them in mailboxes all over the countryside.
Jack laughs, because Shirley misprinted the phone number and they thought they’d have to start over again, but fortunately somebody tried reversing a couple of the numbers when they couldn’t get through and they got a phone call about this 1960 FB Holden Special.
The phone call came from Canberra, but the car was on a farm here in Parkes.
Alan Dray had the FB in his farm shed and his son came across the flyer in the mail so gave Jack a ring.
When Jack turned up to look at the car it was covered in dust with a big sign in the back window “NOT FOR SALE”.
Alan had obviously finally changed his mind!
The left hand side of the car was stoved in and sliced open from a collision with a truck when Alan’s daughter had driven it to Dubbo.
Jack wasn’t fazed at all – he’s a panel beater by trade.
“Alan was fixed on a price and I was happy to pay it so the car was mine,” Jack said.
Upon further investigation, Jack discovered that the FB had run out of registration three weeks before he was even born back in March 1983.
Ironically, his restoration of the car was completed and it was re-registered in March this year, so it now sports two March registration labels, the old and the new, 34 years apart!
Jack did all the the repairs and bodywork himself and had a friend, Darran Potts paint the car in its original Sherwood Green with Colleen Green side flash.
They only repaired and painted the left side of the car.
So good was the original paint that the rest of the car was able to be buffed and polished to match.
It has a 138 cubic inch 6 cylinder grey motor with a 3 speed manual gearbox.
Jack rebuilt some of the mechanicals to get the FB back on the road. The interior is original and is amazingly in very good condition.
Jack loves driving his FB Holden and has put it on club registration using the 60 day logbook scheme and tells me that he plans to use it “every single one of those days”.
For more about the CWCC you can look us up at www.centralwestcarclub.com or visitors are most welcome at our monthly meetings on the first Wednesday of the month at the Parkes Leagues Club at 7:30pm.