General News
20 March, 2026
Classic Vauxhall cars delight crowds
Classic Vauxhalls in all shapes and sizes descended on Maryborough last Saturday.
Community members enjoyed vintage Vauxhall’s from across the country at the Maryborough railway station last Saturday.
Members of the Vauxhall Owners’ Club of Australia descended on Maryborough on March 14 as part of their 51st annual rally.
Over 50 vehicles and around 100 entrants filled the grass in front of Maryborough’s historic station.
While the Vauxhall brand dates back to 1903 it found its familiar identity as an everyday car, rather than something high-end, under General Motors after WW2.
The club’s president Peter Sara said that’s when they became affordable and common.
In his view Vauxhalls were as popular then as japanese cars are today.
“People bought them by the bucket load,” he said.
For the club’s members it means their love of Vauxhalls often comes from a place of nostalgia.
Jim Selkirk has been a part of the club for around four decades and can trace his interest in Vauxhalls back to the 1960s.
He and thirteen others were at Claremont Teachers College in Western Australia doing manual arts.
Between them he said they had all sorts of makes and models but it was the Vauxhalls that proved to be the most reliable.
“There were two Vauxhalls that in the three years they were the only two that were there every day. All the rest broke down,” he said.
It’s that memory which motivated him to save one planned to be wrecked around 1978.
“I put a battery in it, fuelled it up, put some air in the tyres, and I drove it out of there,” he said.
But it was club member Julie Tyrrell’s dad, Frank Coad, that pushed Vauxhalls to the limit.
Mr Coad, who died in 2021, was one half of a partnership that won the first Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island in 1960.
He and his co-driver John Roxburgh won the race, which would later become the Bathurst 1000, in a Vauxhall Cresta.
Speaking to the ABC, Mr Coad said their closest competition didn’t understand the conditions of the race.
The Vauxhall duo had been preparing for three to four months beforehand.
“They didn't realise how severe Phillip Island was on tyres and knocking cars around. It was a very tough circuit that way,” he said.
While Mr Coad may be best known for that race, Ms Tyrrell remembers him through the cars she enjoys.
“He was always in our lives and cars were always in our lives,” she said.
“I often think of him actually.”
After 40 years with the club Mr Selkirk said it’s one big family.
“I would speak to members from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, probably once a week,” he said.
The club offers camaraderie Laurie Bellchambers travels from Tasmania each year to enjoy.
“It’s just meeting people, the camaraderie, the getting together and the general friendliness. This is a very friendly club,” he said.
However, it’s also an aging club, which Mr Sara hopes will change.
“Slowly but surely we are getting some younger members,” he said.
Although they’re in their 30s and 40s he said “in our frame of things that’s young”.
Among the club’s younger members is Matt Reaby, who joined around eight years ago, and is 51 years old.
“I didn’t know anything about them before I bought that car,” he said about his 1959 Vauxhall Victor.
“They’re just good honest cars.”
It’s that reputation Mr Selkirk’s daughter also enjoyed when he introduced her to the brand.
“When she was 17 I bought her first Vauxhall and that was her only car until she was married,” he said.