Queensland P76 Owners Club 2003

Extract:

Experience doing durability testing at Leyland had taught me that we should use a large and simple domestic sedan for travelling in Australia. There was no need for a four wheel drive.


: At the factory I ordered a new P76, a high spec car with air-con and automatic transmission because it was thought to be more reliable than manual.


: We did a lot of extra work on the car, installing a strengthened rear axle and up-rated springs, and many more modifications.
: It was very much like the world cup rally car we'd prepared at the factory during that year.
: Even the body had reinforcement added in critical areas, as recommended by the factory body engineers in their durability reports. The front seats were custom made in the experimental trim dept.


: My time in Sydney was marked by comings and goings by Christine who couldn't make up her mind whether she wanted to be with me, or in NZ or what. We were attached and she was young, she'd be nineteen then. Generally though, she was very loyal, (she wasn't later on!)


: We would barbeque most weekends, often at MacNiel Park, a fantastic spot overlooking the harbour. We would watch the seventy footers racing on the harbour and on one occasion I counted the cranes over the fast growing Downtown, there were thirty four. I learned to barbeque in that park at weekends.


: Around October of 74, the Leyland Waterloo plant began closure and I was laid-off. We were given a generous severance payment, in cash. My friend Bob took leave from work, as this was our chance to see Australia. We drove north from Sydney in our newly prepared P76. Christine went back to Auckland and I would see her again in a couple of months.


: Our trip took us up the East coast, past Newcastle, and our first stop was in Murwillumbah, a sugar town on the Qld/NSW border. There we stayed with the family of a work colleague, Stewart Saunders. I've lost touch with Stewart despite sending several cards to his family. (Found him recently).


: Brisbane was our next port of call. I had to 'sign on' there I was able to draw the dole since being laid-off. Brisbane was unimpressive then.

: I wreck our new P76!

: Halfway up Queensland and travelling a route inland we were in bush country, and as usual we were getting a move on, it was about midday and we'd be cruising at about 100mph.


: In my mirror there appeared a small yellow Toyota Celica, the first model.
: He then actually overtook us. I must have been napping. I accelerated and gradually overtook him, taking advantage of passing on the inside of a long and visible RH bend. At this point I'd be doing about 125mph, as fast as we could go.


: What I had failed to do was to look beyond the bend and to see an
: approaching sharp left hand bend which switched-back over a small bridge across a creek. It was the first significant bend in the road we'd seen all day!


: There was no way I could slow in time to make it across the bridge. I looked for a way out, and decided to go into the scrub to the right of the bridge.
: I got as much speed off as I could, the brakes were locked and we were still doing a hundred as I went onto the dirt. The car didn't slow down very quickly after that, and there ahead was the river. We came to a very abrupt stop with the nose of the car embedded in the far bank of the river. Bob and I were hanging in our seat belts in about a 30 degree nose down attitude.
: The car slowly relaxed and sank into the muddy creek which would be about ten feet across.


: Bob and I climbed out, awkwardly but unharmed as the car settled deeper into the mud. The man in the Toyota had stopped on the other side of the bridge, and came running up to us. He was Japanese. "What happen?" he said, "I see smoke everywhere!" I didn't respond very kindly, I know that much. It wasn't his fault and I was ashamed of my stupid mistake.


: Two tow trucks were needed to pull the car out, as the first one lifted off the ground when trying to 'suck' the car from the mud.


: We surprised the locals that day. "You'll be here for bloody weeks waiting for parts for that unusual car," they said..... Within two hours we were on the road again.


: In town, we had anchored the front of the car to a building stantion,
: started it up and reversed hard a few times, heaving the front end back into some semblance of a correct configuration. Then came new sidelights and headlights. A new radiator was fitted, and the hood sort of straightened out. We'd carried a lot of parts with us thank goodness.
: The whole event took just a couple of hours but the car never looked the same again, and had a compression kink in its roof for as long as I was to own it. It drove perfectly though. Later the car was shipped to the UK where I used it for a year before selling it.

Queensland P76 Owners Club Inc. 2006

Wild Story

Worker from Leyland plant and his hand built p76

I wreck our new P76!