Boom time Rolls: the story of SDB26  © Tom Clarke, 2018

‘As a uniformed schoolboy, I watched in wonder as women in smart suits by Balenciaga stepped from Rolls-Royces to shop in the market town’s Gray Street.’ Thus wrote Richard Zachariah about boom-time 1950s Hamilton in Victoria. His book The Vanished Land (2017) ranges nostalgically over the ‘disappearing dynasties of Victoria’s Western District’. My own car wasn’t owned by a dynasty, and it came from the Wimmera region on the northern fringes of the Western District, but the boom-time connection was the same. This is its story.

Suzanne Finch - written during her time as Club Chairman

Suzanne is also a past Great Western Section Chairman

If I could have foreseen all the fun and excitement we were going to have over the next 40 years, I might have shown a bit more enthusiasm when in 1973 Nicholas bought a dilapidated Bentley 3½ litre and joined the RREC. As it was, to say my reaction to the news was muted would be an understatement!

By Alec Jacobs

In one of what is hoped will be many articles relating to members and their cars, ALEC JACOBS recalls his restoration of his 1935 Arthur Mulliner 3 1/2 litre Sports Saloon B138EF. The first section of this article was written in 2013, with the second, and the photos, added in December 2019.