1928 610 Australian Bodied Tourer
This is a 1928 Graham Paige Model 610 tourer, with an Australian built body. It is the only know survivor with this body to date.** It was found in a back yard in reservoir by my father in 1970. He spent the next 10 years restoring it. When he finally finished, we drove it to a number of rallies including two to Canberra (This included the bicentennial rally), and it was also driven from Melbourne to Adelaide a number of times for the bay to Birdwood rally. Most the this time is towed a camper van for our accommodation. Why 'The Mistress'? When it was being restored the first time, my father spent so much time in the garage my mother commented, "You might as well have a mistress, you spend so much time in that garage." From that point on the car was refereed to as his mistress. This has caused complete confusion when he advised his workmates he was going out on the weekend with his wife and his mistress.
When the car was first collected the wooden framing was so bad it had EARTH
worms in it. In the rebuilding process my father who had no patterns as the
wood was so rotten and had no other vehicles to check with had to use the rust
marks on the bodywork to work out where the wood had sat.
You will notice that it originally had wooden wheels, During a night navigation
trial, we hit a pothole at speed (in a forest section no-one else seems to have
traversed). this split one of the spokes, so we changed these to small center
wires when we found a set and that is how it now stands
The car was then used for both my sisters and my own wedding, and after a number
of years was starting to show some signs of neglect so a couple of years ago
dad and I gave it a refresh and you can see the results below.
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| Look What
We Found |
If it turns it will run.
and Yes it did |
Thirty seconds later that whole side fell on he ground |
The Trip Home |
A couple of points worth adding here. The two "gentlemen" pictured beside the car assisted in the recovery, and were and still are prominent Local Graham Paige owners (I will keep their identities secret to shield them from the sideburns jokes..). Even in the shocking condition it was in. The car still fired up and was driven out of the back yard (By taking out a section of fence and driving through the neighbors yard). The tow vehicle home was my fathers MK 5 Jaguar (That started another obsession for me).
Three house moves later my father finally got started on the restoration. He needed to replace 4 inches of steel the whole way around the body as it had virtually disappeared or was severely rotten.
Here are some pictures of the restoration
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This is her before the restoration
was started |
This is the rear tub |
This is the rear Quarter, or what
was left |
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| Wooded Wheels at various stages of the process | We have a chassis, wheels
and gearbox |
Trial Fitting the bulkhead.
notice the Metal let into the bottom of the bulkhead. |
Getting There. As it was
in February 1979 |
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The
woodwork. All the woodwork was completed in Tasmanian Oak (Local Generic
Hardwood) |
Getting Ready for paint
November 1980 |
In Undercoat February 1981 |
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| The bulkhead being painted.
Not bad for an amateur |
Getting There with the painting | Off to The Trimmers | |
The colors are non standard, the were chosen from my fathers memory of a chrysler 72 Close coupled sedan, his father had, that had been painted similar colors. You will notice it went to the trimmers minus running boards and guards. These were fitted while it was at the trimmers. It was taken straight from the trimmers to get registered and a week later was towing a camper van to Canberra. 15 Years later whilst under the car doing something else, we finally noticed we had forgotten to paint the underneath of the running boards...
Then After all that work this is what we got.
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| Off on her maiden Voyage.
Melbourne to Canberra |
We made it |
Barossa National Rally |
Being Used in conjunction
with a 612 sedan for a friends wedding |
The first obvious transformation we performed
was the final chroming of the radiator. We had to paint the previous one
as it was so bad when we got it it had to be fixed with fibre glass. We
finally found a better one and restored it. We then added the Small Centre
Wire Wheels. |
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| Out the front of a local
tourist attraction |
Rally Around Tasmania
2003 |
Just some fun. When Was
This Photo Taken ?? |
As She Stands today.
This is my favorite picture. She is lining up at the Camperdown Vintage
Motorsport Weekend. |
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This is her as at Sept 2006. Notice the road sign
behind the car. Graham Rd |
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We have been having trouble with the brakes lately and pulled the car off the road to investigate. What did we find. Well the usual things, 20 year old brake hoses (I guess it is time to change those), brake fluid with water in it, one more thing to change, Then we looked at the brake pedal... the photos below show what we found.
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I think It is time to replace this one ... |
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We will have her back on the road by the end of November 2006
** We do know of at least one other going and registered 610 tourer in the united states, but it has a US designed body and as such is a little different, we also know of two others but are both missing the rear tub, so not enough to make another vehicle. So that leaves this one and the UTE we recoved. See here
This Page was last Updated : 01 November 2006