Classics by the Beach: November, 2022

It's probably ill-advised to begin an article by being a smarty-buttocks.  But here I go anyway, writing stuff lots of people are unlikely to give a rodent's bot about or may even dispute.  However, I'm pretty confident that those in the know - owners and lovers of Willys vehicles, in particular - will appreciate the pedantry ... .

Willys is pronounced Williss, with the y making an i sound.  There's no apostrophe; the Willys company does not belong to Willy but was founded by Mr John North Willys.

And now that I've lost the remainder of my already very modest readership, we can move on to discuss this very nice early- to mid-1930s Willys 77 pick-up, photographed at November 2022's instalment of Hobart's Classics by the Beach.  According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willys_77), it's powered by a 2.4 litre four cylinder engine that gave what in its day was considered excellent fuel economy - just short of 30 mpg - and allowed for a top speed of 65 mp/h, which was fair flying way back then.  Their chassis were a very popular starting point for racing cars of the era.

This particular Willys is an awesome looking machine with a rakish front grille, sweeping mudguards and side bonnet louvres that wouldn't look out of place on a Mustang P51 WW2 fighter plane.  It also features a one piece front windscreen - split front glass was common back then - and suicide doors.  The eagle-eyed will spot that it's for sale, too; the phone number is in one of the photos.

The Willys name is synonymous with US military and civilian Jeeps.  However, the Willys brand - and the broader Willys-Overland Motors company - went the way of the dodo, winding up way back in 1953.  However, the Jeep nameplate continues to this day, now being part the Stellantis / Chrysler stable, maintaining strong visual links to their Willys predecessors.

I'm generally not a fan of hyperbole - talking stuff up for the sake of it - preferring to keep things at least a bit real.  That said, this 1980s Subaru Sports Wagon was in absolutely amazing nick!  I thought it was a full resto but a few tiny things - a bit of sun damage to some of the decals, etc - suggest that it's all original.  Every single bit of it is immaculate; its paint, plastics, interior trim and accessories are all, quite literally, like new.  Perfect.  Just perfect!

This crew cab Kombi was also in amazing condition, although it's very almost a cert that it has been restored.  Whoever's done the work deserves full credit; it's very, very well done, as these photos hopefully show.

There's no point in me pretending to have even the foggiest clue about this extremely early Ford car.  What I can say, however, is that I love its rugged simplicity and the wonderful way that it's presented today.  There are a couple of stickers on the rear that suggest that it's used in historic rallys and endurance type events, which must be quite the adventure!

There won't be any further commentary on the rest of the cars shown here today, although I would suggest that you keep scrolling through.  I hope that you'll agree that the Sunbeam Tiger shown a few pics up the page was well worth a look and find the immaculate VW Microbus shown several shots further down just as appealing.  There's also a very nice HR X2 an elegant Humber Super Snipe and a cool Datsun Z to come.

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U M P H

(uppermiddlepetrolhead.blogspot.com.au.)