Comments by "John D" (@johnd8892) on "IWrocker" channel.

  1. Great summary of the era nearly forgotten by many.
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  2. Minties best left melting in your mouth than bitten into.
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  3. Search YouTube for Housing Commission Flats Definately not just low level housing as claimed in some comments. Apartments to distance from Commision Towers. Comments on these flats an eye opener.
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  4. Utes originally car based light trucks and recorded separately in government statistics and registration charges since the thirties. Now getting applied to any light trucks since the car based ones went out of production. Earlier lots of others not Holdens or Falcons. The high performance ute just cropped up largely in the last thirty years since most were work horses.
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  5. A small Japanese naval landing force did in fact invade Australia during World War Two. But landing on a particularly isolated and desolate part of the north west of Western Australia, they found no water, no food sources, no shade and no materials worth capturing that they could see at all. They retreated in a very short time and this remained unknown for many years.
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  6. This was from the period 1961 to 1965 when Formula 1 changed from a 2.5 litre limit to 1.5 litre. Four, six and eight. Later some twelve cylinders ran. In 1966 they went up to a 3 litre limit. They were worried that Can Am sports cars of the time were getting faster than F1.
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  7. All the hemi sixes got rid of the slant. A completely new non slant engine.
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  8. Woolworths was first established in the US around 1900. Business people from both the UK and Australia visited the US and saw how well the US Woolworth's business model worked so just took the ideas back to the UK and Australia and set up equivalent variety department stores using the Woolworth name and the best of the business style. The US Woolworth's did not expect to expand beyond the US so did not trade mark the name Woolworth's. The UK one lasted into the eighties while the Australian one morphed into Big W with Woolworth's being reserved for the developing supermarket chain. Woolworths and Coles fight it out for number one supermarket chain in Australia. As I remember the story anyway.
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  9. Ian you were right about the origin of the Fargo brand truck at 11:17 . Fargo was originally a US Chrysler offshoot for export trucks but usually made in the market they were sold in. From the thirties major sales were in Canada and Australia. Phased out starting in the fifties. Seems lots it the old tooling went to Turkey. So you were right. An Australian built ute Fargo from 1937 came up on Shannons auctions a few months ago : https://youtu.be/YJNXoQZz_Us Called a Dodge Fargo so may be a ute version of the Australian 1937 Dodge sedans assembled here with increasing local and Canadian content. Part of the Australian thirties boom in ute versions of sedans where nearly every maker tooled up here for a simple ute version meant for work purposes. Lots of advantages having a ute version back then.
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  10. Unreasonably hard quiz for some reason. Not too many Australians would get a perfect score and perhaps a minority would do better than you. Quizzes are interesting but need to be reasonable or harder if multiple choice.
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  11. A median salary is a more informative salary indicator to use. It is the salary the 50% are below and 50% are above. Not affected by the hugely high incomes of billionaires and the like skewing the average.
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  12.  @steveskrobot9496  this is from the 1997 Super Tourer two litre only race. One of two years when there were two Bathurst 1000 races. Two litre on channel seven in October and a V8 Holden vs Ford enduro but in November on channel ten. A split in opinion of the two motorsport organising bodies. This year there will be a TCR endurance race in November. But getting less publicity. Will Camaro vs Mustang enduro continue to create interest in future?
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  13. Not underpowered for the early fifties Australian market. Especially power to weight wise.
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  14. This might have been the last of the 750cc limit era when two stroke machines dominated. I think the confirmation is all the two stroke exhaust smoke at the start and the two stroke sound.
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  15. Peanut butter widespread in Oz. Even sixty years ago Kraft peanut butter was on shelves alongside Kraft Vegemite. ETA was another top selling brand. I know this since I have over sixty year old collectable peanut butter jars that when empty convert to drinking glasses. Collectable because they have human type peanuts playing cricket printed on the jar. Given to me by my grandmother when a child. In my pantry I have peanut butter and Mighty Mite but no Tim Tams or Milo confectionery type stuff. Ad from 1984 ; https://youtu.be/qlHGB4Gwrjk
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  16. We can thank the US market and specifically the US Mercedes Benz importer, Max Hoffmann for getting the car into production. He pressured Daimler Benz to make a road version of the very successful racing 300 SL from the early fifties. The sealer from this, amid nevousness from the factory about how many of such a car could be sold, was Max Hoffman putting in a firm order for 1000 cars. That order got the road car proposal underway and unusually shown first at the New York Motor Show around January 1954. The Gullwing doors were to provide clearance for the very strong and light (50 kg) tubular frame extending to where s normal door would require an opening. First non diesel car to have fuel injection. The biggest US market, California, really preferred a convertible, so that was developed soon after. The slanted six cylinder motor, to make things lower , may have inspired Chrysler and others to develop the slant six and other makes slant four design. As you suspected there was a very successful race car 300SL but earlier and perhaps less than ten made but far too stripped of luxury as well as expensive to be sold as a road car. Think the early uglier racing cars won LeMans 24 hour in 1952 as well as the Carrera Panamerica road race rally through Mexico. These wins got Max Hoffmanns attention for the road version and knowing how much money the US market was willing to spend on cars.
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  17. No. Cugnot in Paris in 1769 was well before that. Three wheeled and front wheel drive.
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  18. Easy to miss Part 2 https://youtu.be/LPiSyilTFeI Since first part not labelled as such.
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  19. Ram and Silverado are sold here new. But outsold by about one hundred more popular cars. The $100,000 starting price puts them out of reach to most. Not much US right hand drive production, mustang and new Corvette only I believe, means these trucks need to be converted here adding to the expense Ford in the news here talking about the F series making a comeback. I expect a huge price. Even Ford's only big seller here, the Ranger, is getting very expensive with the new models.
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  20. Although there are comments that this Surfers Paradise circuit was used for Indy cars, it was more the CART side of things when the IRL split happened. Less known in Australia was the CART vs IRL war , so they all get called Indy cars. Eventually the costs became too much so just reverted to just V8 supercars mainly with near the same income as the joint race meetings but with much less costs. Seems about twenty years ago we had the mixed meetings.
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  21. So good potentially that it got banned. Leas aero resistance from the low profile tyres too.
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  22. The daily commercial top speed is 320 kph. Much slower than the record run so as to keep damage to the equipment and electricity consumption to reasonably affordable levels. Even so many in France will say the fares charged to use them are too much. But the fares barely cover the operating costs.
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  23. Most of Australia did not get to see the race either. It took until the 1969 race until the TV coverage was extended to outside Sydney and parts of New South Wales. This coverage is from newsreel movies footage shown leading up to the main feature at cinemas.
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  24. Pre war prototypes 6hp . Post war production started at 9 hp. Then increased over the years. Documentary on them : https://youtu.be/Bak50Emxa_M
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  25. All sorts of cars and utes sell more than the Tesla 3. Just spin on it a while back that it was the biggest selling large sedan. Tritons, Corollas , Mazda 3, Rav 4, Klugars , LandCruiser, MG, Hyundai's, Kias all outsell the Tesla. But the Camry did not last year.
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  26. Tesla below these twenty outselling it : Toyota HiLux – 64,391 Ford Ranger – 47,479 Toyota RAV4 – 34,845 Mitsubishi Triton – 27,436 Mazda CX-5 – 27,062 Toyota Corolla – 25,284 Toyota Landcruiser – 24,542 Isuzu Ute D-Max – 24,336 MG ZS – 22,466 Hyundai i30 – 21,166 Toyota Prado – 21,102 Mitsubishi Outlander – 19,546 Kia Sportage – 18,792 Hyundai Tucson – 17,870 MG MG3 – 16,168 Mazda CX-30 – 13,891 Mazda BT-50 – 12,937 Mitsubishi ASX – 12,753 Toyota Kluger – 12,562 Kia Cerato – 12,354 Tesla 3 around 10,800. Might be 30 and not 3 ranking. Yearly figure for 2022 not a monthly blip when a boat comes in.
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  27. Echidna also commonly called the spiny ant eater in times past but less so today. I would not be so pedantic to call Spiny Ant Eater wrong. Even the then treasurer and future Prime Minister, Harold Holt, called it a Spiny Ant Eater when describing the soon to be released first decimal coins for the five cent piece. : https://youtu.be/Qnmp-da-U6E A not so fun fact that after a year or two being Prime Minister he went for a swim into the ocean off a semi private surf beach and his body has never been found. The local council of his electorate commemorated his name by naming a public swimming pool after him.
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  28.  @Reneesillycar74  they dropped the laws after ten or twenty years, but for a while it caused confusion when people from those states asked for peanut paste in other states. Search for Queensland bans peanut butter will show more detail.
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  29. First a 383 6.3 litre then later some had the 440 7.2 litre option for the SP cars. All Chrysler motors. Expensive new and more expensive restoring the usual rust buckets that remain looking affordable.
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  30. Red car at 11:00 is a 1954 Kurtis Kraft Offenhauser Indy car. Did a good time for a two speed gearbox.
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  31. Promoted as give away but really a lottery.
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  32. More coverage after changeover day : https://youtu.be/x-RiX5NCn8w $5 a later useful addition. No $50 and $100 bills then. Thinking was no one would need a note as big or bigger than a week's wages then. Inflated prices today would have them in shock.
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  33. Blinky Bill first published as a book in 1932. A favourite Australian childrens book remaining in print and having steady sales ever since. Later published in different forms and colour illustrations. Made into cartoons and film in the nineties is what many remember most. A vid of the original book being read : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll0LNqkOdGo
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  34.  @jankwartel1860  Sounds like someone with very unreliable knowledge of Mad Max.
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  35. There are Holdens racing at Bathurst this weekend, but in the Suoer 2 and 3 support races for older model cars
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  36. Police car racing at Bathurst but early sixties Studebaker. Studebakers of the later era sold surprisingly well in Australia assembled here from Canadian sourced parts and local content. More common here than Buicks, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Lincoln, Mercury, Dodge and Plymouth. Similar with Ramblers being assembled here. Police thought highly of them. Some police racing enthusiasts bought them at police auctions to go racing at Bathurst. Story of the Australian Studebakers here : https://youtu.be/SHHTPLw-oNM Some of the police highway pursuit cars were two door cars. Standardised on V8s with highest trim level here to justify higher prices and simplify the range. I will try to track down vids of Victoria Police Studebaker cars used in the popular local Australian TV show Homicide.
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  37. Yep. Ford hoping to replace the Falcon in the nineties with the joke Taurus.
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  38. Some discussions of this demo I had come across was that the Peter Brock Torana in this did not have the right Bathurst gearing for the differential so could not get up to the speed it should have on Conrod straight.
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  39. Not native animals though, but imported in the 1800s and became feral and widespread. Both Camels and Water Buffalos were introduced here for other purposes but when that purpose ceased the remaining animals bred widely in the wild and became feral.
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  40. The 50% of population map , even though it is from 2011, would still be much the same. The Australian Bureau of Statistics provides suburb like population figures each year. When I was reporting on that, as part of my work for years, it was rare for even parts of the regional areas growth to exceed the major metropolitan areas growth. That trend for the capital city areas to increase their share of a states population had been happening since the thirties recovery from people heading to the bush to live on eating rabbits and look for itinerant work. One thing that did happen was that "suburbs" on the fringe of metropolitan areas would start functioning as part of the metropolitan area and thus be absorbed in the metropolitan area instead on functioning as regional areas. Often called Urban Sprawl but caused by Australians aversion to living in multi story high density flats. For Victoria in the fifties, places like Dandenong and Werribee were regarded as Country towns in the fifties with industry like farms, livestock sale yards and similar. Now very suburban.
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  41. All the Vauxhall cars like that were built in Australia and badged as Vauxhall for export to the UK. Never made in the UK. Always a niche product sold for a short time in smallish numbers but only when Vauxhall were another GM brand from about 1930 to 2016 or so.
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  42. Interesting to compare the views of this compared to your AFL vid. Tells you something about interest in the two codes.
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  43. Better result than most Australians that I have seen.
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  44.  @gold4leaf  Dollars and Cents are not metric. No metric standards for currency, unlike weights and measures. The USA have had Decimal currency for over two hundred years but are still anti metric. A metre is the same all around the world , but the value of a dollar depends which country it was minted by.
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  45. We should all start our comments with " G'day Ian " just to remind him or maybe rub it in.
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  46. Actually given to him by Ford Mo Co and then air freighted in to Australia. Moff was in tears when he heard the news. Ford saw a commercial advantage to Australian sales for one of these very special Kar Kraft cars racing in Australia rather than just being another on the grid on Trans Am for a lower rated US driver. The US driver who was supposed to get it was not happy, so the story goes. But Ford were paying for these very special , but semi standard looking, cars
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  47. I now find the rules allowed him to change to larger hemi six in 245 or 265 spec with triple Weber carbs. Still impressive. Recently may have changed to a V8 to get the win Cameron Tilley deserves.
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  48. Sounds like the 1970 Torana based GTR-X. Fibreglass body on a XU1 running gear. Saw it at the 1971 Melbourne motor show and as a brochure collecting kid grabbed a few brochures. Nearly got into production : https://youtu.be/Independent https://youtu.be/idSFdOpzAMo Think I saw film of it running round Lang Lang proving grounds
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  49. Took a while for Bathurst 500 race cars to be allowed to put a roll cage into the car. Was it 69 or 70?
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  50. Good to see Daniella. Thanks for her suggestion. Amazing stuff. Only saw a tiny group of these visiting NZ. Never seen any glowing insects in Australia, so might be rare here.
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