Museum has new location
Motoring, industry history
FOR almost two years, a unique collection showcasing historical highlights from Geelong’s industrial giants had been kept in storage.
Dozens of the city’s famous cars and inventions, such as James Harrison’s refrigeration system, were never meant to be gathering dust.
With its stunning display of vintage Ford vehicles and other rare artefacts, The Geelong Museum of Motoring + Industry was opened to great fanfare in November 2014.
But as the Federal Mills Park tech hub in North Geelong exploded and space in the precinct quickly became premium, the museum shut its Mackey St base in early 2017.
A potential new location in the Corio Distillery fell through, leaving museum chairman Nicholas Heath scrambling for a location big enough to house the memorabilia.
It took more than 18 months, but the collection has finally found a new home.
“The stars aligned to make it work,” Mr Heath said.
The museum reopened on Thursday night in the grounds of Western Heights College in Hamlyn Heights.
With almost 50 vehicles and other engines, cutaways and historical pieces on offer, Mr Heath described it as a bucket list destination for Ford fans.
The display includes the only surviving prototype of the Ford Falcon XR GT, which was developed in Geelong by a team led by Barwon Headsbased engineer Don Dunoon. It is effectively priceless. There are also the last four cars ever made by Ford in Australia, before it halted production in 2016.
“They are a couple out of the 12-14 vehicles Ford have given us that are amazing,” Mr Heath said.
“Think of it as the largest men’s shed in the world.
“It’s another drawcard for the region, the perfect reason for people to come and visit Geelong.”
A large number of Ford arte- facts feature in the 1500sq m museum, having been transferred from the Ford Discovery Centre after its closure in 2012.
One of those is a desk that company founder Henry Ford once used. The desk passed through the company, until an executive decided he couldn’t relocate to Australia without his comfortable workspace.
Ford’s headquarters in Detroit, in the US, is keen to reclaim the desk, but the Geelong museum isn’t giving it up.
Ford Australia communica- tions director Martin Günsberg said the company was very grateful to the board members and volunteers for creating the centre.
“We are so happy to have this museum in Geelong, it is Ford Australia’s spiritual home and the perfect location to showcase Ford’s history,” he said.
“It’s a proud moment to see so much of the Ford line-up on show at the museum.”
The new venue also doubles as an educational facility for a new generation of car and machinery enthusiasts.
Western Heights principal Fiona Taylor said the museum would increase student exposure to work across the science and trades sectors.
“The partnership will allow our students … to gain hands on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) experience in vehicle restoration, engineering, design, and technology as well as administration, customer service, history and other fields.”