An Australian Adventure in 1956

Fantastic exploits across Australia in a Standard 8

The Standard 8 at the desert filling station where the sump plug didn't get replaced correctly

Webmasters warning - don't try this at home!

From Lang Kidby in Australia...................

I had not thought of a Standard 8 for 40 years until I recently saw one residing in Port Pirie (near Adelaide, South Australia) advertised in a magazine.

This brought back memories of when my father was state manager for Standard in Western Australia in the mid 50's. We did a trip in a Standard 8 from Perth to Melbourne and back which in those days was something of an adventure. It is 2,500 miles each way which included over 1,000 miles of very rough dirt road across the Nullarbor Plain. The poor little machine was somewhat overloaded with mum, dad, my 9 year old sister and me, aged 10. To add to the discomfort, Bonney, our rather overweight Labrador dog came along for the ride. No accommodation was available (there were no towns!) across the desert section and we had to take camping gear

Lang's mother, sister and father contemplate 1,000 miles of desert from their overladen Standard 8

The trip to Melbourne was uneventful though required some vehicle modifications. A dash mounted fan was fitted to circulate the hot air - this was over Xmas and the temperatures were around 100deg. Dad had the dealer attach a roof rack which made the car resemble those photos of overloaded Saharan country trucks and, for that Monte Carlo Rally look, fitted a spotlight. This was essential because the roads were (and still are) alive with kangaroos and wombats at night. I seem to recall this provided somewhat better lighting than the two candle-holders provided by the factory.

You can see in the photos a lighter colour around the doors. This is masking tape which was attached to try to keep the dust out of the car. I suppose when Standard motored around the green lanes of the British Midlands road testing the prototypes, dust exclusion was the furthest thing from their minds. After the first day on the dirt we all looked like Welsh coal miners (white coal??) and for the rest of the trip all the doors were sealed with tape leaving the driver's door as the only exit

The run home to Perth had its moments. For some reason dad decided to get an oil change right in the middle of the desert at Nullarbor Station. I suspect it was because the car would have been cleaned on our return and sold a few pounds under new price as a "demonstrator". The station was a fairly primitive cattle property on the road which provided fuel from 44 gallon drums and did repairs to vehicles damaged by the corrugations and bull-dust holes on the road. The workshop was a dirt floor tin shed. Anyhow about 100 miles into the wilderness we lost oil pressure. The "mechanic" had forgotten to tighten the sump plug!

In this enlargement (left) you can clearly see the taped up doors and the large dog with its head out of the rear window

As the Nullarbor (No Trees) Plain was short of wood to whittle a new plug dad cut a few inches off a tent pole, wrapped it in a rag and screwed it into the sump. Mum came good with a couple of pints of cooking oil and we drove at very slow speed back to the homestead. A new plug was turned up on the lathe (no doubt Standard 8's are similar to many British cars and had a 17/139ths left hand double spiral thread so nothing off the shelf fitted) and the replaced oil got us another 600 miles to Kalgoorlie. By this time the rattle of ruined bearings was making us feel like were sitting beside a Vickers machine gun on the Somme. The Standard dealer gave us a replacement Standard 8 for the last 300 miles and no doubt took our car, washed it and told the little old lady buyer that machine gun nest ambience was the latest in automotive technology.

Lang Kidby

Brisbane, Australia

By the time you have read this story twice, you will have to believe it is true! Lang and his wife Bev are Australian adventurers and explorers. You can see from the extraordinary story above how he came to catch this particular bug

Come back soon to read Lang's modern update to this Standard story

Phil Homer

May 2010