Cars have been a career and a passion for Lloyd
Lloyd Chudleigh first came to the Gazette’s notice when he rang to identify a Warragul service station and car showroom in our new series of historical photos.
He was able to tell us that Utility Motors was in Queen Street and also to date the photo, since it showed a brand-new, unregistered 1932 Ford sedan.
Mr Chudleigh knew it at once because he owns a Ford from the same year, although his is a tourer.
As he talked about his Ford, it became apparent that he had quite a story to tell.
Cars and trucks are his life, personal as well as work. “Right from the start, whenever I could I escaped out the back door from Mum and went down to the shed with Dad.”
He’s lived in Drouin for 48 years – “only a couple more years to go and I’m a local” – but grew up in Yallourn, where he followed his father into the SEC (State Electricity Commission) transport workshops in Yallourn.
“My dad started in the motor trade in 1920. My brother and I followed him and then so did my two sons. That’s more than 90 years.
“It’s all we’ve done for three generations. I don’t know anything else.”
He did a five-year apprenticeship at the SEC. His foreman was his father. No favours, of course. “He was one of the old school.”
“The modern mechanics don’t try to mend anything. All they do is take something out of a cardboard box and fit it.
“We had drills, lathes, presses, welding gear. We had to make parts and adapt them. That was the beauty of it.”
“I come from an age where you adapted things. You welded. People came in with all sorts of problems and you solved them.”
After he left the SEC, he spent a few years at the Moe Butter Factory before he came to the Drouin Butter Factory where he worked under the legendary Bill Kraft.
As workshop manager of a fleet of about 50 trucks, including 30-plus tankers, he was on constant call, to the detriment of his family life.
“You’d get a call in the middle of the night. Someone’s bogged. You had to take another tanker out, unload the milk then pull out the bogged truck.
“There were always broken diffs and gear boxes and chassis. In that sort of business, you’ve got to get the truck back on the road.
“The milk can’t wait. You perform a few miracles.”
It was exhausting work, but he also recalls the sense of satisfaction.
“Sometimes it was best you didn’t know what was ahead of you. You’d work half the night and see the sun coming up the next day.
“If you’ve just done a nasty job, you pack up your tools and you drive home and you feel quite proud of yourself.”
He recalls performing some of his biggest miracles working on mates’ logging and stock trucks.
“A friend of mine broke a crankshaft on the side of the Walhalla road. I had to get an old Blitz army truck with a bit of a jib on the back to lift it up.
“We changed the crankshaft right there and he delivered the logs the next day.”
He still fixes cars even though he’s edging towards 82. “It keeps me moving. You see people my age getting around on sticks or spending a fortune sitting on a push bike.”
He’s always been a Ford man. He grew up with them. The first car his father owned was a Model T Ford.
“They’re simple, good and reliable. Easy to work on and the parts are plentiful.”
As for the 1932 Ford tourer (made two years before he was born), he’s had that for 58 years now.
“I paid £100 – about five weeks’ wages back then.”
It’s still got the original number plates, the original owner’s certificate, the original everything.
“I took my wife to the Yallourn Hospital in it to have our second bloke, and he’s 55 now.”
He even has his own spare parts department. When he lived in Moe, the fellow in charge of the Morwell tip arrived one day with a truckload of parts, complete with serial numbers.
“The Ford garage in Morwell had had a cleanup and chucked them all out. “That was like Christmas to me!” He’s reached the stage where he’s thinking about putting things in order. The `32 Ford will go to the boys.
“But there’s a lot of knowledge up between my ears. When I go I’ll take it all with me.” No, he corrects himself. That’s not quite true. “Colin’s and David’s skills and knowledge are even greater than mine.”