Farms and Farm Machinery – September 2019

28 TradeFarmMachinery.com.au THE TRACTOR YOU WANT IS NOW EASIER TO FIND

FEATURE

M

y firstjoboutofschoolwasunloadingwheattrucksand

loading wheat trains at the silos at The Rock, a lovely

small town between Wagga Wagga and Albury in southern NSW.

It was 1980 and nearly every farm truck which trundled in

was a small rigid built in the 1960s, with a grain bin perched on

the back. Unloading involved opening usually very stiff old side

chute doors.

So it was quite a novelty and a relief when the very occasional

semi-trailer tipper turned up.

Fast forward several decades and of course the grain game

has got much bigger in every way, but on country roads you

can still see the occasional ancient old rigid with a grain bin or

livestock crate on the back, usually poking along much slower

than everybody else would like.

And of course there are plenty of them to be seen nicely

restored at vintage truck shows and hot rod meets.

But it’s rare to see a single collection in “original” condition

like these 20 old classics. Farms and Farm Machinery spotted

Formanytruckiestraversing

the Olympic Highway on one

of the main tracks between

Melbourne and Brisbane,

these old workhorses would

have evoked some fond

memories. Steve Skinner

writes

a groupofoldtrucksin a paddockwhileonthemove between

Wagga and Melbourne in May and went back for a closer look

more recently. Ironically, this truck “graveyard” is bounded by the

highway and a local road which leads to the local cemetery.

The aspect that stands out is the absence of Japanese trucks –

they didn’t start their domination of the rigid market in Australia

until the late 1970s or so.

Instead there are long-gone American truck brands such as

Dodge, Fargo and Ford; and extinct Brits like Austin, Commer

and Bedford.

There were no air bag suspensions to be seen on any of these

old bangers, which were often horribly overloaded in their

heyday. And there were even a couple with spider wheels,

something you never see on rigids these days.

WORKS OF ART

This set of vintage trucks has already been sold to a single buyer

for parts by Wagga and Uranquinty general antiques dealer John

A truck could be as ugly as

sin but sometimes they’re

more beautiful when

they’re ugly.

saved from the grave

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