HUSBAND FINDS A NEW PARTNER
Rob Beeston from Queensland, Australia, has recently acquired a one-off 1914 cyclecar known as the ‘Husband,’ a name it acquired in the early 1970s. Unlike the Special-building craze in the UK during the 1950s and ’60s, there was no supporting industry to help cyclecar builders, so it was a case of using what they could find.
The Husband was built by Peter and Norman Husband of Charters Towers, a goldmining town in central North Queensland. It features a spindly chassis made from wagon-wheel rim iron, with the front end thought to have been homebuilt. The back axle came from a De Dion-bouton Quadricycle, as did the wheels, springs and the rear of the chassis. The engine is from a 1908 Holsman, an American maker specialising in ‘high wheelers.’ There was no gearbox, with power going to the wheels via friction drive – though the friction-drive plate and friction wheel are missing. It is thought to have had a simple ‘sit-on’ body, but nothing of it survives.
The Husband is believed to have been sold to an owner in Charters Towers in around 1920. “Then there is a blank in its history until ‘Digger’ Norton found the car on the closed-down Day Dawn mine site in 1957,” says Beeston. “It had a tree growing through the chassis, which Norton had to remove.” The car passed through a number of owners who did little work on it, before ending up with long-time Veteran Car Club of Queensland member Graham Wilkinson in 1986.
“I bought the Husband from Graham’s estate,” says Beeston. “I first heard of the car back in 1986, when he called into my business to show me pictures of his new acquisition, but I didn’t think about it again until I saw the car last year and was struck by how well it was built.” Beeston is currently rebuilding a 1911 Brush Roadster, and restoration of the Husband will follow.