I promised in my previous podcast that I would cover the MINI car revolution in this episode and I will, but first I need to do a touch more fleshing out of my journey back into the trade.

After the briefest of all breaks after settling the sale of the pub, I found myself in the used car department at Whitehorse Motors in Nunawading.

Once was a client but now, an employee selling a car brand I had come to admire and actually like. 

There’s nothing like selling a product that you truly believe in.

It was a Saturday morning, and I was settling in, setting up my desk, collecting pens, pencils, staplers and sales agreements order pads and all the shit needed to sign up a customer, when I was handed a beautifully produced roster.

Was it a roster of days off or the hours we were to work at the yard?

No.

It was the roster of who went up the street at 10AM and collect (and paid for) the party pies each Saturday for the sales teams morning coffee break.

Last on, first on the list, I later found out from the used car manager Dick Sampson. Dick was a very funny guy. He came to Australia from Dutch Indonesia after the “troubles” when the Dutch left the region. He spoke with a strong Dutch accent, but I believe he never lived in Holland. 

I can stand corrected if that’s not so.

Website: https://www.gordonmcleish.com/

The 1960s was a decade of great change and the motor vehicle industry played a major role in those changes. 

The decade began with the introduction of the iconic Mini and ended with the arrival of home-grown muscle cars – the Holden Monaro, the Falcon GT and the Valiant Charger.

In between, came the beginning of the end of our preference for European vehicles with the arrival of the Japanese.

The major styling feature introduced during the sixties was the ‘Coke bottle effect’, in which the boot and rear door panels were swept upwards over the wheel arch creating a profile which resembled that of a Coca Cola bottle. 

The first Australian car to incorporate the Coke bottle ‘hump’ was the XR Falcon in September 1966. 

The styling of the car was inspired by the Mustang, copying both the coke bottle style line and the long bonnet and deep, stumpy boot.

Whereas the fifties were dominated by British made 4-cylinder cars, the sixties saw Holden, Ford and Chrysler erode the supremacy of the imported 4-cylinder car and establish the locally built 6-cylinder models as the Australian motorists’ premier vehicle of choice. 

Website: https://www.gordonmcleish.com/

Back in The Trade

The kids were growing up.

The work was relentless and hard. Anyone that dreams of owning a little country pub should have a month running one on their own. Then decide.

The hours just kill you.

So, we decided that one day when we got an offer on the hotel that maybe we should accept it and one day we did.

We moved back to Melbourne.

Plan (A) was to go overseas, do a bit of a tour of Europe or maybe a cruise on a ship and then I’d come back and look for a business opportunity or a good job.

We rented a Villa Unit in Nunawading and booked the kids into the local state school while we decided what we were going to do with the rest of our lives.

One morning, I said to my wife Marian,

“I think I'll go up to the Volvo dealerships and get the car serviced. I'll see you in a few hours”

“yeah OK” she said “see you later”

White Horse Motors were just around the corner from our flat, and if it was a long service I could walk home from there quite easily.

Then after booking it in with the service people, Noel Cheney sees me and sits me down makes me a cup of coffee.

I was going to be a few hours at the car yard and so we just filled in the time chit chatting about the pub and funny things that happened there.

A phone call comes through, and Noel gets tied up.

“I'm sorry Gordon, I’ll have to catch you later” and off he wandered.

One of the other salesman Dick Samson was there selling used cars and he came over and he was talking away about this and that and the other.

A new car salesman called Ron Kantor, a lovely guy, came over and spoke to me for a while and he sort of got tied up too.

I was being handed from one salesperson to the next and it was just like the old days. 

Website: https://www.gordonmcleish.com/