Road legal and ready for 90 days of fun in the sun.

Road legal and ready for 90 days of fun in the sun.
Mr & Mrs JB looking very pleased and rightly so..

Tuesday 25 September 2012

The "Deliverette" van.




Charlie found a picture of a "Deliverette" van and published it on his blog 28.05.11.http://www.victoriajvan.blogspot.com The van is picture outside the Melbourne Exhibition buildings here in Melbourne.



Obviously at the time, manufacturers were looking for new vehicles to produce, after the suspension of vehicle manufacturing during the war. This vehicle has a strong resemblance to the Morris J van – but it was only a prototype
Sir Laurence Hartnett was working for GM Export in Asia and was sent to Australia (1934) to turn around GM Holden’s fortunes. In 1936 GM Holden was one of the founding shareholders of Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) and during the war, CAC under Hartnett’s leadership was involved in the war effort - Holden 
and CAC factories are adjacent.

After the war, GM wanted to create a new “Australian” car. Hartnett wanted a small light car, and when GM decided it was to be a big car , Hartnett  resigned
He built the small light car himself – A “Hartnett”, strongly on aircraft  principals, because of his association with CAC, and with a power unit of a 600 cc BMW Motorcycle engine. Because of supply problems, few were produced. 


Hartnett was also involved in the "Deliverette", a small light van, again based on aircraft principals and again with a power unit of a 600 cc BMW Motorcycle engine. The "Deliverette" was never produced, but Hartnett bought a prototype off CAC and used it personally. His Deliverette is now in the Melbourne Museum. If it had worked out, it could have been the GM competition to the Morris J


John

Messerschmitt repairs.




To continue the story of the replacement roof, the new dome was despatched by airfreight from UK and arrived in a huge box. These replacement domes are made oversized (50 mm all round approximately) to fit any irregularity in the cars, so the first job is to cut it to fit. There is no base starting point, and as the dome cost A$2500 and is made of 2 mm plastic, it is not a job for the faint hearted. It took two of us three full days to grind the dome little by little so it fitted. Some glue and a packing strip and it was locked into place and I was more than relieved that we hadn’t cracked it or ground it too small. The car passed a roadworthy with flying colours (MOT to you guys in UK) and is now on the road. We have taken it out on a couple of occasions, and everybody stops and takes a picture


John