Alexandra Truck Show 2009

We took the Volvo to the Alexandra Truck Show on Sunday June 7th. Alexandra is about 170 km from Cora Lynn and it was raining all the way from Pakenham, which didn't make John very happy as he hates getting the truck dirty, however with the recent bushfires up in the area we thought it would be good to support the event, so we continued on. The day didn't really get much better, it was cold and overcast or raining all day, so the photographs are pretty dull. The numbers of the new fancy trucks were down on last year, but the number of historic trucks was up slightly, so obviously historic truck owners are made of sterner stuff than modern truck drivers. In fact, if you listen to John who has been driving trucks since 1964, modern truck drivers have no idea of what it was like to drive a truck in the early days.

Naturally our Volvo was the best looking truck there, but my second favourite truck was the 1968 245F Austin with the doors set into the rear of the cab, originally designed to make the trucks accessible in narrow English alleys (pictured below). It is owned by John Leadbeater of Kinglake.

Ian Lee's Princess Diana truck won the Best Vintage Pre 1960 truck. It's a 1956 Diamond T. My favourite Royal is Queen Victoria, but I could never imagine decorating the Volvo with a portrait of her.

John has a soft spot for old Kenworths, as he drove some of the early ones when he was working for Camerons in the 1960s.

Also displayed was the 1954 AEC Mammoth Major, belonging to Wayne Harris, which we saw last year at the H.C.V.C Display day at Sandown.

For something a bit different there was a Japanese truck, a 1974 Toyota Dyna on display, owned by a couple from Rushworth.


This truck (below) belongs Wayne Green and is a Cummins powered Ford 800, 1967 model. John thinks these were the best effort from Ford prior to the introduction of the Louisville in 1976. John was driving a Fleetways car carrier (TK Bedford with a 120hp Perkins) delivering Fords at the time of the introduction of the Ford 8000 and every time one came into the Delivery compound at Ford Broadmeadows, all the drivers would stop and check them out as they created a lot of interest.

The Ford 750 owned by H.C.V. C identity, Stephen Costorphan is pictured below. Also in the picture is the Blitz owned by Andrew McIntosh, a stand-out in orange.

This is a 1928 Chev, and pictured below it is Max Devlin's 1928 Dodge. They were parked together like a cute pair of matching book ends.



Other trucks included a1924 Benz (the only other European historic truck apart from our Volvo) and a selection of Dodges, Chevs, Inters and Fords and a White 9000 in very original condition (bottom picture).