Ford Collection destroyed in Kinglake fire.

[Bigbjorn]

The extensive collection of Ford vehicles from 1913 owned by Wal Martin and his sons was totally destroyed in the Kinglake fire.

Wal is 85 years old and is the Proprietor of Watsonia Garage. The large collection was in the big shed at his house at Kinglake. The family and the house survived with some damage to the house.

The collection, some of which were vehicles unique in Australia was totally destroyed.

I spoke to Wal today. They have a generator for power, and Telstra have routed their land line through to his mobile and are charging land line rates.

[JDNSW]

Unfortunately I fear there is a lot more of this sort of thing going to gradually come out. I am afraid that as well as the human suffering and personal loss, we will find that the country has lost a lot of history, not only in things like collections, but also historic buildings, not to mention many records.

John

[Lotz-A-Landies]

Very very sad.

How do you start replacing a life-times collection at 85 years old?

[George130]

Not a lot more you can say.
Would be crushing to loose a lifetimes work like that.

[loanrangie]

Sad news, my dad knows Wal and he was only telling me yesterday about the loss. Another one of his friends who lives in Yarraglen lost one of his cars, he managed to drive the Auburn out before the shed went up but couldnt get his Delahaye out .

[Shonky]

When I get a place of my own, I am builing my workshop underground (appropriately drained of course).

No fires or storms or cyclones are gonna get my babies down there...


Tragic...

[Lotz-A-Landies]

When I get a place of my own, I am builing my workshop underground (appropriately drained of course).

No fires or storms or cyclones are gonna get my babies down there...


Tragic...

Had you thought about floods! Nothing drains when when the water level is above your roof!

[mcrover]

When I get a place of my own, I am builing my workshop underground (appropriately drained of course).

No fires or storms or cyclones are gonna get my babies down there...


Tragic...

Had you thought about floods! Nothing drains when when the water level is above your roof!

Thats the first thing I thought of.

I did a bit of the recovery at a couple of the schools after the 200mm of rain in Melb some years ago flooded them.

Some of the equipment even though not worth much in money terms were very historically significant to the industry.

In one of the floods were 2 of the first motorised wicket mowers used on the MCG which are still being rebuilt and a fergie 35 with the first ever pre production set of australian 5/7 gangs made under license for Ransomes.

There were only a couple of these ever built, 1 set was ratted for parts to keep this set going and this set was in perfect order, had been looked after and appeared to be in brand new condition.

The Fergie was the cleanest 35 I had ever seen, not a single scratch or worn bit of paint on the machine.

Maybe instead of building into the ground, what about a concrete walled and roofed workshop which is then covered in earth with heavy fire doors on the front.

You could make the doors water proof and sealed so that in the event of a fire you could also use it as a bunker.

If the fire got in there then there would be no way you were going to survive anyway.

[EchiDna]

build it into a hill?

actually my thoughts are to build a dirty great big concrete walled wine cellar/larder into the side of a hill containing a couple of 10,000+ litre concrete water tanks as the side walls with enough space between for all my stuff. wack a couple of steel roller doors on the front with a diesel pump powered sprinker system and you could last for hours if the air held up. Add a few sets of dive gear and you would have air on hand to survive in all but the worst circumstances too.

[Disco300Tdi]

I spoke to Wal today. They have a generator for power, and Telstra have routed their land line through to his mobile and are charging land line rates.

Telstra were/are giving out free mobiles to the residents and all at landline rates. The power has been restored to parts of Kinglake. The teams are working 24/7.