Thread: Land Rovers during the Snowy Scheme

Serendipity today. (We drove Perenties down to the back of Jindabyne delivering batteries (8 x 67kg each veh) for a solar pwr setup.)

Had brekky at Bredbo. We ate in the carpark beside the Monaro Hwy. A ute pulled up and an old gentleman walked around the Perenties and then we chatted.

This gent was aged and still driving a workute but he said he was a retired Land Rover mechanic who did his apprenticeship with LR, starting in 1951 I think he said. The garage down the road (he meant Cooma) worked on Hydro LRs and "was part of Grenville Motors." (?)

He commented that most weeks they fitted 8 to 10 reconditioned diffs. They fixed them after removal and always had plenty in stock ready for a repair order. He said they did engines like that as well. He said "The early engine Landy was the best, unstoppable climbing rough hills", and "the second engine had more HP but the same gearbox and other parts -it wasn't up to it", and "The new one wouldn't go most places the first one would. It wasn't done right."

"The Landcruiser changed a lot of buyers minds. It didn't get so dusty inside. The japs had a proper door hinge, they took the time, and the seal rubber worked, Land Rover's fitting was very basic and the Landcruiser was almost posh like that, the door shut properly. Then they (LR) came out with a ball and spring on a pin and they still didn't work well enough."

We talked about axle splines and diffs some more and then we went on south.

Oh the diffs began a few comments about Rover P3s. He said "Not many on the site knew it but SMHEA owned three P3's. Hudson had one but why did he need three? No one ever found out. Right from new there was a rattle under the passenger floor somewhere. I did warranty work and I spent hours and hours pulling out me hair and never did find out the cause. I'd ask the chauffer about it and he said he couldn't hear a rattle. It must be another driver. I could hear it plain as day, I wasn't dreaming, and the office had a complaint in but I got no help with it from the drivers and gave up. They all had the same rattle. Years later when they put me in charge it came back to haunt me, it was a curse."

I may be reviving and old thread, but here goes.

I am doing a story on the Snowy Mountains Scheme Land Rovers for the next issue of The BMC Experience.

I have tracked down a stack of info, but one thing that I am still confused about is the number of Land Rovers used by SMA.

In Noel Gough's book, Mud Sweat and Snow, Bert Knowles says 715 Land Rovers were bought between November 1949 and December 1966. The implication is that they stopped buying Land Rovers in December 1966.

The first Land Cruiser owned by the Snowy Scheme (as opposed to Thiess) was bought in 1967.

However, I saw somewhere on this thread a figure of 1300+ (can't recall exact figure) and that SMA was buying Land Rovers right up to the end of construction, which was 1974.

Bert Knowles said that when the Land Cruiser became available to SMA in the late 1960s they stopped buying Land Rovers.

So, can anyone (Diana?) tell me exactly how many Land Rovers were bought by the SMA (not including other bodies like police, forests, SEC, etc)?

Also - in 1997 The Snowy bought one Defender 110 and four Discos (2 each three-door and five-door). Does anyone know what became of these and does Snowy Hydro (as it is now called) still have any Land Rovers on its fleet?

Thanks, Watto.

Originally Posted by Watto

I may be reviving and old thread, but here goes.

I am doing a story on the Snowy Mountains Scheme Land Rovers for the next issue of The BMC Experience.

I have tracked down a stack of info, but one thing that I am still confused about is the number of Land Rovers used by SMA.

In Noel Gough's book, Mud Sweat and Snow, Bert Knowles says 715 Land Rovers were bought between November 1949 and December 1966. The implication is that they stopped buying Land Rovers in December 1966.

The first Land Cruiser owned by the Snowy Scheme (as opposed to Thiess) was bought in 1967.

However, I saw somewhere on this thread a figure of 1300+ (can't recall exact figure) and that SMA was buying Land Rovers right up to the end of construction, which was 1974.

Bert Knowles said that when the Land Cruiser became available to SMA in the late 1960s they stopped buying Land Rovers.

So, can anyone (Diana?) tell me exactly how many Land Rovers were bought by the SMA (not including other bodies like police, forests, SEC, etc)?

Also - in 1997 The Snowy bought one Defender 110 and four Discos (2 each three-door and five-door). Does anyone know what became of these and does Snowy Hydro (as it is now called) still have any Land Rovers on its fleet?

Thanks, Watto.

I don't know the answer, but I had the impression the 1300+ included forestry, police etc.

Originally Posted by Watto

I may be reviving and old thread, but here goes.

I am doing a story on the Snowy Mountains Scheme Land Rovers for the next issue of The BMC Experience.

I have tracked down a stack of info, but one thing that I am still confused about is the number of Land Rovers used by SMA.

In Noel Gough's book, Mud Sweat and Snow, Bert Knowles says 715 Land Rovers were bought between November 1949 and December 1966. ... <snip>
Thanks, Watto.

This question is not as easy as one would think.

The Grenville records are hand written then photocopied and then scanned, accessing the numbers will be a time consuming task.

Further to that as has been said, not all Land Rovers on the scheme were purchased directly for SMHEA. Some were owned by NSW Forestry and others were NSW Electricity Commission and still more were owned by individual contractors, such as Kaiser Walsh Perini Raymond. There were five vehicles dispatched to a local agent Monaro Trading prior to the first vehicles sold to the SMHEC which could have been "used" on the scheme. There are also ten 1949 models sold to the Commonwealth Dept of Supply, where we don't know the destination federal agency, these could also have been used on the Snowy Scheme.

The first batch of vehicles we know went to the SMHEA were a batch of six 1950 model vehicles to the Dept. of Workers Housing on 28/11/1949. Given their chassis numbers these would have been painted deep bronze green and yet we know from the National Archives (image no. 4240211) at least one 1948 model in sage green was used on the scheme.



The scheme was officially completed in October 1972, when the scheme went into the operational phase. The successor company Snowy Hydro is an unlisted company, therefore vehicle purchases since October 1972 should not be considered as part of the scheme. It is also possible that purchases late in or after completion may well have been purchased directly from the local Cooma Rover/Land Rover dealer P.D. Murphy or another local company Monaro Trading.

As I already said to Watto, it will take time to compile the answers.

It would be nice to have a definitive (or as close to) answer for how many Land Rovers were actually used on the scheme with a breakdown of whichever operator (private/government/contractors, etc) used them. That way it may help combat the Toyota 'advertorials' that the Land Cruiser built the Snowy Scheme, forgetting that few were used and only late in the piece.

Good luck with the fact finding and compilations - a VERY worthwhile endeavour. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this thread!!

It is already known that hundreds of Land Rovers were owned and used by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electricity Authority in the 9 years before the first Land Cruiser was purchased by a minor contractor Thiess for use on the scheme. In that period all the major surveys, site access roads and worker camps were built with the help of Land Rover and a variety of trucks and other non-Toyota vehicles.

http://www.4wdonline.com/Places/Au/SMHEA/LandRover.html

Another member (Bytemark - thanks mate) posted this useful link elsewhere so I'm just adding the link here to preserve it for future reference.

Sent from my SM-G900I using AULRO mobile app

Just remember that Anthony Maeder's article is at least a dozen years old (from my first reading it) and the comments that were contemporary when first published are well out of date today. Particularly the comment about the fire engines, in fact Anthony owned one of those Land Rover fire engines and sold it about 15 years ago, so I suspect the article may actually be as much as a quarter century old.