The life and times of Australia's "Nullarbor Kid". True stories from his past.

"COVER GIRL " (Episode)

I was looking out of the window of the car while the boss was talking to me.

"I haven't seen the truck but the owner says it's in good condition. It's a petrol motor with a 32' trailer attached to it. He is sick and can't drive anymore, so he wants to sell it."

I looked across at him and nodded. "Do you think you can handle it...  you know drive it?" I had never driven a semitrailer. I had experience in all sorts of tray trucks up to that time and wasn't the least concerned about a trailer. In my short but hectic career, I had been jumping in and out of all types and makes of trucks. Fords, Internationals, Austin, Morris, etc. Most belonged on the scrapheap, old, no brakes, gauges that didn't work, radiators that constantly boiled and so on. This truck was fairly new. If it was a bit longer than those others and had an extra brake lever under the steering wheel so what?

"No problem. How long has it been sitting? Hope it hasn't got a flat battery." I replied.

We stopped outside a vacant block of land next to a factory, a high wire fence all around and double gates locked at the front. Down the rear of the block there she was sitting in the far corner face into the back fence. I was expecting it to be out on the road. I could see the back of the cabin and a single axle trailer attached to it. The cabin appeared to be painted a dark blue and white.

OK I said to myself... if I have to get her out I will have to reverse it a little, then go forward hard right over to the other fence, then reverse back hard left pushing the trailer sideways and backwards, which should give me room to then go forward turning the wheel quickly to the right and drive up to the front gate, the trailer should swivel on its axle and follow me.

If I have to do it that's what I'll  do All of this I worked out quickly to myself while I gazed at her in a day dream, anxious to get in her, picturing myself driving back across Sydney, hoping  to be recognised by someone that knew me. This at long last was a big truck. I had arrived.

The owner came out, unlocked the gates and I had to concentrate in not running madly down to jump in the driving seat like a big kid. Well you know...I was still a kid but I had to look grown up and as we sauntered down to the truck I sort of was half a step behind, just to prove I was not particularly impressed and did this thing all the time.

When we reached the cabin I nearly sighed aloud in ecstasy

She was a Commer R7 forward control slant six petrol motor that was under the seat. Every thing was polished and clean. The whole cabin was painted a gleaming blue and white duco. She certainly had been looked after and then my eyes widened and hungrily darted at the doors and on the front just under the windscreen her name. "Cover Girl" stylishly written and on both doors an expert artist had drawn a very pretty red haired girl laying down and talking on the telephone with a warm smile... obviously inviting a man's company. She certainly had mine from that moment.

 I was in love.

 The owner started the motor and while he walked off with the boss, he indicated to me to bring it up to the gate.

"OK see how good you are Ray..." I thought "let's do it like you said." I did, she did and we idled up to the gate.

I'm a natural... come on boss lets go I said to myself as I looked and touched every thing I could find to touch in the cabin, the sun visor , the two speed diff. button, the brass trailer brake lever, looked in the glove box, lets go lets go.

I don't remember the drive back to the yard but I wish I could remember it as that was probably the highest high I would ever have in my quest for the impossible dream.

piece of road. Down Mooney Creek then crawling up again it took nearly all night to get to Hornsby. I was probably well overloaded as the boss was allowed only two loads a month in that rationing time after the war and no matter the weight I had to take them.

We persevered, my darling and I and that was when I first started to talk to my trucks driving along. A habit I continued for the next 20 odd years.

Seeing as how we were not using "Cover Girl" to her full capacity the boss looked around to see what to do with her.

The Standard Motor Co. who produced the Vanguard and the Standard 10 small sedan in Melbourne were not happy with the backlog trying to deliver bodies and complete cars to the Sydney plant via the railways in the early 1950's.

It then occurred to us that the Hume Highway was really only the link between towns that had grown in the 18^th and 19^th century.

People on horseback were not very tall and stage coaches like Cobb &Co certainly would not have been as tall as the height of our trucks carrying cars way up in the sky.

So the trees had grown unhindered from the beginning of time till then.

At one stage we organised a tree branch cutting operation...we would drive along till we came to what looked like a low branch...stop underneath in the middle of the road, climb up on top of the car roof and saw the branch off and throw it onto the side of the road, that helped but we never did get all of them.

The boss came in one day and said he had seen a truck in a magazine from the U.S.A. which had a cut down look and had cars poking up and down a bit like some that can be seen to-day on our roads. The trailer part had been lowered like a low loader.

I was only a kid and wasn't much help but the boss had been in the R.A.A.F. during the War and was a fitter and turner.

He took the pipe frame off and we measured from the front of the trailer to a little way past the prime mover chassis. I lifted the floor boards out a little way from where he decided to cut the trailer through from one side to the other. At this time we had the truck in a welding yard and so it was cut through from one side to the other, the trailer axle disconnected and the trailer its self supported by stands.

He realised the trailer axle would control the height to which he could lower the rest of the trailer...it turned out he made the level to just above the height of the rear axle which made the front at the "goose neck" just above the drive axle, a nice flat floor the original height and then about a metre lower the rest of the trailer was a flat floor all the way to the back. Some lengths of R.S.J. welded in the upright position joined the two separate chassis heights and strengthened with braces and lo and behold it looked good.

Hang on. How were we to drive cars through from the back of the trailer to the front past the duel wheels? The space between the inside wheel on either side was not wide enough to drive a car through. They took up too much room the cars were too wide.

After much thought the boss decided to do away with the inside wheel change the spring set up and have only the outside wheel a single wheel each side. Not two axles and four wheels just one axle and a single wheel each side. As a safety precaution he ordered a pair of Michelin tyres (supposedly the best on the market) and a larger size tyre for safety... safety? I wish he had driven it, it scared the hell out of me and I was young with no fear.

The pipe frame was welded on again with four only uprights on each side holding the top deck and two diagonal braces.

It was then decided to run the length of the trailer on the top of the frame and overhang the cabin two monstrously heavy steel runners for the cars to drive along the top deck as he intended that we would not need a crane to load., These were supported by 10 or 12 cross metal bars from side to side the length of the trailer.

As I found out later with quite a few heart  stopping moments, the bloody thing was top heavy empty never mind having three cars as well up there, and running on single wheels at the rear.

It swayed that much we were always patching and welding because the swaying kept cracking the welds around the scaffolding tube where it joined the top deck.

I learnt very quickly that unless I could control the swaying so that it leant into the curve I was trying to take I would be swept sideways the wrong way, either into oncoming traffic or into the bush depending which way the road curved. Both instantly enveloped me in sheer terror when this occurred as I fought to bring it under control.

For instance...coming to a left hand bend in the road...I mean a fairly sharp one...I had to move up the camber to the centre of the road before the bend and then get her to sway to the left and give it to her round the bend at the same time and she would perform like a lady. If she wouldn't immediately sway to the left I had to stamp on the brakes and lower the speed for her to grudgingly take the curve.

When we arrived in Melbourne at the Standard Motor Co. yard on the first trip as a low loader car carrier they were happy no more dented roofs on cars. We had dropped the height by over a Metre.

We believed we were the first but we learnt that The Ferguson Brothers I think was their name in Melbourne had also built a similar trailer about the same time who was first?

There was only day's difference but I know we were the first to load and complete a trip to Sydney and unload. Everybody then had to build similar trailers or the Standard Motor Co. wouldn't load them.

With the materials available in those far off days it was felt that weight was the best and some of the car carriers that came later were monstrously heavy with full steel panel sided like half a pantech. Some with full top floors which loaded Hoover washing machines and such to Melbourne and loaded cars back to Sydney.

I remember well the early trips trying to control my "Cover Girl" as she was called …a definite female with a mind of its own. I always hoped that the name would imply she was fast and loose, well not loose but at least fast. To my everlasting sorrow she was slow as trucks went. But I loved my "Cover Girl," Now and then she would rattle me as females could do and  just  sometimes I could kill her as she tried to do to me once or twice.

Like one night very late, stone cold sober and freezing from the wind blowing up through holes in the floor in a winter fog, coming into Barnawartha just south of Albury on the old road through town from Melbourne. The road bent slightly to the left entering the town, the road had a very high camber...I misjudged for a second and was too far up on the centre of the road a little bit off and a little bit of a lean the wrong way to the right much too close to the row of old fashion shop fronts stretching ahead of me. I froze for a split second, my right foot hovered over the brake pedal and my right hand clutched the trailer brake lever not game to use either. As she bounced along slowly leaning over further and further to my right, I'm anxiously waiting for something to give and go BANG, slowly leaning more and more with every bounce. It was then I slid across the seat as far left as I could get to the passenger side of the cabin steering with my right hand on the left hand side of the steering wheel my other hand on the passenger side door handle getting ready to abandon ship, the top deck of new Standard Vanguard sedans leaning over so far and just missing the roofs of the shops and the old uprights holding the verandahs up along the kerb going whoosh, whoosh past the windows nearly close enough to touch.

If I had applied the brakes, balanced as I was she would have toppled over, all the time I’m  absolutely terrified yelling "come  up you bastard come up" not daring to touch anything  but grip the steering wheel, half frozen with cold and fear, remembering the two drums of petrol tied with rope just behind me waiting to engulf me, and at the same time  I could see me wiping out the whole right hand side of the main street of Barnawartha….my darling  falling over sideways like a covered wagon trying to escape from the Indians in a western movie, but  somehow  she bounced back upright , how I don't know  and I slithered back across the seat and grabbed the wheel with both hands and a little way up the road out of town I stopped and had a well earned 'comfort stop'.

Another time she didn't want to go left and I ended, luckily it was flat ground, into the farmer's fence on the other side of the road coming to skidding halt in a cloud of dust. Thank goodness no one was coming the other way.

Another bad habit I remember was the main fuses for everything hinged on a large metal cover attached under the dashboard and down to the metal floor. The screws for the plate would sometimes come loose. It always seemed to happen at night and at the most awkward spots, and I would loose all electricity everything motor, lights, everything. You can imagine late at night the cold sweat popping out as you come down off a mountain...the plate falls off every thing goes black, the motor stops  and all you have is a mental picture of the road in your head while trying to put the brakes on  and at the same time grabbing for the plate with the left  hand trying to earth it again, head bobbing up and down trying to see with the right eye through the bottom of the windscreen with flashes of headlights now and then and sparks shooting everywhere trusting you are keeping on the road as you last saw it.

I must own up one night it was about just after midnight and the fuse plate had fallen again and nearly gave me a heart attack. For some reason I couldn't keep the lights working properly, they kept going on and off, the motor was running ok I couldn't wait till dawn. Suddenly I remembered the top car at the front over the cabin was facing forward. Most times it was the rear boot to the front and I knew if I could make Yass I could fix the electrical problem. I pulled over climbed up top and connected the battery and put the front car's headlights on low beam. I took off, turned my lights out and presto I could see ok not much to drive by but see... yes... if I lost the lights again. So as I said to her "Cop that you bitch" This was one time she had me rattled. I changed up and away. Well I bet I got some funny looks from the few boys on the road that night. Four headlights, one set way up in the sky coming to-wards them. I could see the reflection of a pair of headlights making hard work of it coming up the "Seven Sisters" just around the corner ahead, so I doused my truck headlights and swept around the corner and roared down past a 180 International truck  grinding up to the top. I bet his hair stood on end, wondering what this huge thing was with headlights 20feet of the ground barrelling down on him from up around the corner. We weren't into space ships much in those days.  But I would have loved to see the look on his face. I didn't do it again...he was only doing 5 miles an hour in low gear up hill so I didn't put him in any danger but it was a laugh thinking about it later... I fixed the plate in Yass and turned the Vanguard's headlights off.

I learnt very quickly all her moods and "Cover Girl" and I had a successful partnership for a long while.

Sometime after all this the Boss had another bright idea a second single axle was fitted like today's car carriers... we were learning... much better stability with the second axle. The Standard Motor Co. stopped shutting their eyes every time I left with a load of cars and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Cover Girl" in her cut down version never damaged a car... close... But never.

They say you always remember your "first", She was one of mine.

From; "My Way on the Highway", Copyright 2005 Ray Gilleland

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