We’re a pretty handy mob, when we put our minds to it. 
I also had Volvos for a few years, all two series. They were made to comply with various emission standards, European, Californian and rest of North America. We seemed to get sent whatever was left over from all of those orders. Plenty of confusion for the home mechanic.
The 144/164 & the 244/264 are demanding decent money here now
Not the Maxi, but Oz did come up with the (oddball) Morris Nomad (the result of an illicit liaison btw a Maxi and a Morris 1100: see Hubnut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB-r2JTsTmk
Ta for the link SDU. I could g**gl* it but did any Landcrabs win the Marathon? I know they were well regarded.
Hillman Hunter first, Austin 1800 second, Ford Falcon XR GT third, if memory serves me correctly. Nationally that was Britain, Australia, Australia, of course if the Citroen hadn’t crashed west of Sydney, it would have won.
I followed this event as closely as possible when I was a schoolboy, mostly by radio news.
What year would that have been i remember my dad having an Austin 2200 same as the 1800 but with a bigger engine horrible thing.
The London to Sydney was 1968, the X6 was 70~72, at a guess.
Where did they cross the water? On my London to Darwin overland, with no other competitors, I gave up trying to get from Delhi to Singapore and thus never discovered if there was a ferry from there.
I had bought a book from my book club at the time called ‘First Overland’ by Tim Slessor and he and his companions had a rare old time coaxing their Landy down to Singapore through Malaysian jungles.
I did that in about 1964 or 5 I think so the book must have been late '50 or early '60s.
Edit: Slessor’s expedition was in '55, the book 1957.
A friend of mine is recreating such a trip, as closly as possible.
He is awaiting the car arriving in Darwin, to complete the final leg.
Anything familiar here, Spardo?
More then than now, '71~'72 I reckon.
Blimey mate, much to go on there. From the link I have had only enough time to read one article, the Truck Train across the Nullarbor. I never knew about that but one thing about it struck me. Did they upgrade the rails in the '60s, maybe a change of guage? I say this because I have written before here of the Coord road trains that used to pull into Buntine’s depot at Katherine to refuel, carrying long rail lengths from the Nullarbor (or so I was told) northbound to complete what became the Ghan railway from Darwin to Alice. I often wondered why they did that, if the rails were not fit for purpose what were they doing laying them for a brand new railway?
Not much familiar from the Sarina video. I never saw a railway when I was there, just the railcars I have mentioned before near Mackay. At Sarina I worked for the Main Roads Department driving a road roller. I did work driving a site truck in a sugar mill somewhere and again with a small gang at another one cutting raw cane for the labs, but memory fades as to when and where.
The Buntine video. So much is familiar, the scream of the Mack air starter (why are those things not standard equipment, no flat batteries to worry about and no soft tyres either with the long airline provided?), the dust (but we kept further apart than those blokes), the cows and the terrorists (tourists). They never bothered me, the only ones I saw were pulled up on the side of the road taking pictures of us. And Noel himself of course, absolutely unmistakable in voice and appearance. Walk socks and all, NT Smart. 
But much was different also, even though, if you are right, there are only 3 or 4 years between them and me there, but I didn’t see a single driver that I recognised, not one. No Ray Mantoba, no Kevin, the young one, no George, the run down old timer, no Connelly, the part Aboriginal with a lame leg and a reported fierce temper when roused, and others I couldn’t put a name to now.
Was there really such a turnover of drivers, almost makes my one season there par for the course.
Sleeper cabs instead of in the bull dust under the trailer, R motors instead of B 61s and did they have fridges? Not a sight of a water bag on the bull bars. Double deckers, double drives, walkways on the top, electric dogs instead of swinging down from between the cross bars to kick the cows to rise again, or driving the rest away to briefly drop down to blow a nose to get them up. Banging the tyres and especially me as a newbie with rag tyres, changing 16 punctured wheels on my first trip (4 borrowed from the drivers) and mending them all myself back at the base.
A bunkhouse was mentioned, that was at Katherine in my time, with a kitchen and shower block too, but although I knew that Ray had a family in Brisbane I always assumed that the others were single and lived there. Maybe not, according to what Noel was saying.
Anyway, thanks for the trip down memory lane, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, but I wouldn’t want to do it again. 
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https://next-horizon.org/the-truck-train/
The rest of Lang’s website is worth a read. He and Bev have just arrived home in Brisbane, awaiting the arrival of their century old Bean car, in Darwin as they replicated Francis Birtles England~Australia drive a hundred years ago. When the car is unloaded, they’ll fly to Darwin and complete the drive.
Francis Birtles is worth googling as well.
A Blitz! He’s keener than me.
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A real hero mate, same vintage as me but I’ve given up on all that cross continent stuff now, just me and the dogs, and the hardest thing is that for a time at least I’ve got to walk them separately because I can’t train one while worrying about the other.
He’s right about sleeping on the truck because of the snakes though, I once woke up after leaving Buntine’s sleeping on the ground somewhere between there and the Alice and shaking one of the buggers out of my sleeping bag in the morning. Never knew he was there, he never moved, must have appreciated the warmth.
He’s older than me, but looks fitter and healthier than me, mate. 
I’m just looking at the specs of the “logs”: the bigger was roughly 11m long and 4.5m circumference (after a trim). That’s a lot of decent hardwood.