I should have known, but it didn’t occur to me that they would use road trains to transport cars in Australia. And here’s one to prove it, a 1973 White 4000 powered by a Cummins 335, shot in Adelaide River, NT in 1974. And the driver is dressed for the period (and the heat) in his short shorts.
Here’s a few more from down under:
This Mack hauling Fords is a bit shorter, with only two trailers.
Not exactly road trains, but some vintage Australian cars and trucks to savor.
Hey, cool, a road trainload of new Valiants!
(Call me chicken, but I’m glad I don’t have to share roadspace with road trains)
Nah, they’re fine. They let you know when you can pass. It is wise to pull off completely as they approach you with a closing speed of 120mph+ on dirt roads, mind.
I’ve been on a few buses up in the north that, using the radios, overtake the ‘trains on dirt, totally and utterly blinded by dust: on those occasions, you either develop immediate religion, or trust your existence to old hands, but either way, THAT I’d be far too chicken to ever do!!
I’ve had that experience once, up in the Territory about ten years ago. The tour guide seemed to know all the regular drivers, and they seemed to know him too. Quite a brotherhood, they are. Scary, but.
Not even close to 120mph. Nice try
These help me understand “Mad Max” a little bit more
They actually really do. I had always assumed the menacing heavy bullbars on the front of the Mack truck were fabricated for the movie, but it’s probable that truck was a former road train itself that just happened to fit the look.
Fun fact: In Australia they call them “‘roo bars”.
Bull bars is the term, roo bars are the lighter version fitted to cars
In the first shot with the Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) facsimilie about to board, I’d love to know how those Valiants are clean. If they came from the factory in Adelaide, that’s 1800 miles away, about half of it corrugated dirt road. Ofcourse, the load could be headed south for some reason.
For US folk, if it was going south, once this rig had left Adelaide River he’d go through Katherine (10,000 people) and Alice Springs (25,000) people before hitting the southern coast 1650 miles later at Port Augusta, a spectacular drive across everything from the teeming tropics to rugged dry mountain ranges to flat gibber (rock) plains so featureless you can practically see the curvature of the earth.
Big country, but tiny population, for the vast majority of it.
I’ve never figured out why so many folk cram themselves into the cities when there’s so much open space outside them. Guess I just don’t have the herd instinct.
No, Matt, those sort of bars are common as muck, and not just for road trains.
Kangaroos vastly outnumber humans, and are a permanent presence even on parts of the semi-rural roads on the suburban limits, let alone in the vast stretches of the outback. Truckies, relying on movement to make a living, aren’t going to slow or stop for them – and the dear old kangas are dimwitted bastards who do like to hop into the roadway at the last second – so flattening an 80lb bag of fur and bone at 60mph needs a pretty stout tool.
Touché, there are many long haul 18 wheelers in the US with them for the same reason for deer, not universal but you definitely see lots of trucks with bullbars along certain interstate routes like i94 through Wisconsin.
And a couple of pop up campers on the load in the first shot. Get your new tow car and camper at the same time.
Were white roofs a thing in the hotter parts of the US? It was a popular option here through into the late 70s. You can see the orange VJ Valiant (or maybe it’s a Dodge) ute has one and there are two on the truckload of HZ Holdens (plus one Cressida).
The wheels on the HZ GTS look weird to me. Could it have the optional wire wheels?
I guess that strange COE thing is a twin-steer with that centre axle?
Also, you commented on the driver’s short-shorts but not on his Japanese Safety Boots! My father wore leather thongs just like those until very recently.
And lastly, thank God for unleaded fuel, EFI and catalytic converters for allowing us to escape the vacuum tube hell such as can been found under the bonnet of 4M and 5M-E equipped Toyota Cressidas!
Auto glass in Australia had to be clear with no tint well into the ’70s, possibly into the ’80s. That was a fairly big driver of the preference for a white roof, front sunshade, and backglass venetian blind (inside) or louvers (outside).
Absolutely insane rule that tinted glass was once not allowed in Australia, the one place where one needs it more than just about anywhere else.
I remember some Volkswagen brochures that I have from the 1970s stating tinted glass, as well as rear opening windows was “not available” for the Australian model.
We really were (and still are) governed by imbeciles.
I’ll have that green Mazda Capella.
It wasn’t an insane rule; it was intended to maximise visibility while driving at night, and given the disproportionate danger of driving at night for exactly this reason (inadequate visibility) the clear-glass requirement was an appropriate and sensible rule. Made things uncomfortable in the sunshine, though.
Appropriate and sensible?
Driving at night must be a uniquely Australian phenomenon!
Haw haw haw and stuff; you appear to be arguing that if at least one country doesn’t have a particular requirement, then that requirement isn’t valid and shouldn’t exist anywhere. The logical conclusion of that line of argument is that there should be no safety standards at all—why not, it works for Mozambique!
But it’s also possible to have a thoughtful conversation about things like this, which are a lot more complex than “Hurr, derp, stupid rule!”. Some countries’ safety standards are more stringent than others. Sometimes that extra stringency pays benefits; an easy example would be the US/Canadian requirement, unique in the world, for all vehicles to have front and rear side marker lights and reflectors. The Euro-fanboi types snivel and scoff about them, and make poorly-informed rationalisations for their removal (“If they’re such a good idea, how come they’re not required in Germany, hmm? Huh? Hmm?”), but the fact is they cost-effectively prevent crashes, so there you are.
I don’t have the data the Australian Government based their clear-glass requirement on, but I do know quite a bit about driver vision, particularly at night, and the prohibition on tinted glass wasn’t just a random idea some government dweeb put on the books just for fun. It was an appropriate response to a real safety threat.
As Australia’s own auto industry grew smaller and weaker and imports came to dominate the Australian market, incentive grew for the Australian Design Rules to be aligned with the U.N. Regulations, so that is the direction they went. As in other countries (such as Japan), switching from national standards to the U.N. Regulations involved some requirements getting more restrictive and others getting more permissive. That doesn’t mean the requirements loosened or eliminated by adopting the international regs were unnecessary, it just means the government decided to prioritise minimising trade barriers.
As an aside here, I remember in reading a road test of the Dodge Phoenix (Plymouth Fury to you guys) back around ’68 or ’69, that the side marker lights had to be disconnected for the Aussie market as they were illegal here! Might have been in a magazine (which I’ll still have) or the local city newspaper (which I won’t). I think the rationale was because only an emergency vehicle was allowed to show an amber light, indicators aside.
Personally I can’t figure that out, as many cars with wraparound taillights show red to the side at night. Likewise an amber light at the front, when indicators are flashing. I don’t know whether it was an individual state’s law (we did have them once) or a national thing, but for a while there our Big American Automobiles (the few that were sold) came with dummy side marker lights.
I believe sanity prevailed, and that was later changed. We certainly see them working on more recent American imports nowadays.
Interesting! Any chance you might be able to lay hands on that magazine, if it be? What you describe would’ve been for the ’68 models, as most US ’69 Mopars had only side reflectors with no lights—the US requirement was for side marker lights and/or reflectors on all new vehicles from 1/1/68 through 31/12/69 as a phase-in, then the “or” was dropped with effect from 1/1/70.
The info I have on side markers in Australia is incomplete; traffic safety researchers there in the late ’60s-’70s urged that Australia should adopt the American requirement, but that was never done. Large vehicles in Australia—trucks and road trains and such—long had double-faced side marker lights, sometimes only a few of them and sometimes quite a lot of them, giving amber light forward and red light rearward. That’s an arrangement still permitted, but now so is the U.N. (“European”) setup of all-amber side markers on large vehicles, an effect of the Australian Design Rules having been aligned with the U.N. Regulations. However, there is an ADR (№ 45) specifically for lighting devices other than those specified in the U.N. regs. ADR 45 includes the Australian amber-and-red side marker lights for large vehicles, as well as the U.S.-type amber front/red rear side marker lights for non-large vehicles.
If that article you remember was correct in saying the side markers had to be disabled, you’re probably right that one or more state laws drove that. Whatever the obstacle, it seems to have been removed by ’69 when the VF Valiant (probably among others) had rear side markers; other Australian-made cars seemed to gain them through the mid-’70s when the trend appears to have fizzled out in the absence of a legal requirement for them.
It was tinted windscreens that were illegal in Australia. Holdens with factory A/C had tinted side and rear glass. I’m not sure when it came in, but my November ’71 built HQ with factory A/C had tinted side and rear windows. HQ two door hardtops also had a factory tinted rear screen from the factory.
Not entirely true both my 73 Valiant Regal and 77 Chrysler Centura had factory tinted side glass windscreens had to be clear though with only a tint band at the top permitted.
It does look like the optional wire wheels. I remember a GM-H service bulletin on the topic. Circa 1978
Twin steer single drive looks like an old Isuzu
GM-H rebadged Isuzu trucks as Bedfords in the 70s. Possible.
A lot of mixed-make loads – two Mazdas with the Valiants in the top and 3rd pictures and a Toyota on top of an otherwise-Holden load in the bottom one.
I’ll take the white Corolla wagon in photos #1 & #3.
…….. to complement my 2018 white Corolla iM wagon.
It’s now called a “hatchback” but it’s in the same format as the ’72-ish wagon in these photos.
(“wagon” is no longer PC today, right?)
If only I could get the white walls & wheelcovers of the ’72, in modern size.
I just go for shiny objects!
(maybe the road train is actually carrying a Mazda wagon?)
Yep, Mazda 808 wagon. A mate had one, in a bilious fluorescent (putrescent?) green. With a tan interior.
Hey, at least it wasn’t grey!
It’s worth noting the last two rigs are actually truck-trailer combinations.
Did trucks in Australia ever use double roof panels like the Land Rover Tropical Roof? I saw a Mack in Israel in the early 80s that that had a white metal panel set several inches above the cab, and a roof mounted air conditioner.
Some did, yes.
The white roofs on some of the cars are much more practical for NT than the vinyl roof on the blue Valiant Regal.
It is a bit of a handsome beast though, I like sedans without vent windows and fixed rear glass panes in rear doors, gives a nice uncluttered look.
I just noticed that the top deck of the third trailer on the road train appears to be carrying a gold HQ Monaro GTS sedan so that’s two GTS sedans (but not two Monaros!) in one post about trucks!
Looks like some Fords too, which would make sense in the NT with lower volume of vehicles being moved. I’d initially assumed that the Mazdas were Galants, which were being built by Chrysler in Adelaide at this time.
I’d guess that the other GTS has alloy wheels with some sort of centre cap, rather than wire wheels.
In the first shot with the Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) facsimilie about to board, I’d love to know how those Valiants are clean. If they came from the factory in Adelaide, that’s 1800 miles away, about half of it corrugated dirt road. Ofcourse, the load could be headed south for some reason.
For US folk, if it was going south, once this rig had left Adelaide River he’d go through Katherine (10,000 people) and Alice Springs (25,000) people before hitting the southern coast 1650 miles later at Port Augusta, a spectacular drive across everything from the teeming tropics to rugged dry mountain ranges to flat gibber (rock) plains so featureless you can practically see the curvature of the earth.
Big country, but tiny population, for the vast majority of it
What a great bunch of comments for me in The U.S. I learned some more about vehicles Down Under and regulations. Thanks. I am sending this URL to a friend in Sydney who collects old Mercedes but loves them all – cars that is.
Was air conditioning in vehicles widely available in Australia at this time??
I would deem it a necessity based on the above comments.
I looked up Adelaide River on Google maps and saw this at the Stuart Hwy rest area.