Last week I spent a few hours driving along a dirt road in the middle of Notmuch, near Somewheres.

The roads out here eat cars alive and the roadside and nearby scrub were littered with the burnt-out carcasses of the recently dead. Some had obviously been the victims of brute-force contact at speed, whether with cattle, camels or wild horses is unknowable.

Some looked like they’ve just run out of the essentials of vehicular life—fuel, oil, tyres or water—and just been abandoned.

Others look like they lost the will to live and just expired on the spot.

This 1977 Holden HX Kingswood sedan doesn’t fall into that category.

I’m used to seeing these remains on bush roads throughout the centre and beyond but I’ve not seen such a concentration as along this road to Somewheres.

What usually happens is some enterprising auto-wrecker takes a crane truck and portable car-crusher out and picks up the wrecks, squashes them flat then carts them off for scrap. Either they’ve not found this part of the world or …

On the outbound run the number of old car bodies littered in the scrub caught my eye so I decided to take a closer look on the way back. Turns out that there were quite a few rusted gems lurking out there.

Here are a few.

I reckon this is one of the older cars along the road.

My guess is a Hillman Minx or similar from the mid-sixties but someone else out there may be able to give me a better field identification.

UPDATE: Thanks to my good mate Peter Holt’s tip that this might be a Simca, a little digging around confirmed that this is (or very much was) a 90A Aronde, originally made by the French Simca company but made under licence in Australia.

Wikipedia says of the locally produced Aronde that:

The 90A Aronde was produced in Australia from 1956 by Northern Star Engineering which, along with Continental and General Distributors, had been contracted to assemble the model from CKD kits, using local content. In July 1959, Chrysler Australia announced that future production of the Aronde would be undertaken at its factories in Adelaide. In late 1959 the P60 was introduced, selling alongside the 90A well into 1960, and a five-door P60 station wagon was introduced in late 1961.

This 1958 Holden FC Special has obviously seen better days, and a long time ago. The Holden Heaven website reckons that the FC—more than 191,700 were produced—was Holden at the top of its game.

The FC replaced the FE at a time when Holden sales figures had reached dizzy heights. The market was booming, as was Holden’s market share, which hit an incredible 50.3% in 1958. The nearest competitor was being outsold two to one.

Wheels magazine said of the FC:

Its designers have steered an excellent course through the paths of compromise required by modern practices. The Holden has far fewer faults than many cars with higher price tags and imposing overseas origins’. Before the FC bowed out, the 500,000th Holden had been produced and the 10,000th exported.

This 1965-66 HD Holden Premier cost around $2300 and Holden made more than ‎178,900 over the model’s two-year life and were the first Holdens to offer disc brakes and a three-speed automatic gearbox.

Holden Heaven notes that the HD was an ugly duckling of a car but that while:

 … in later years, the HD would probably be the least favourably remembered Holden, the early demand was exceptionally high. During the first few months HD sales actually outstripped those of the record-breaking EH.

I couldn’t identify this poor thing, squashed flat on its roof but it from the days when cars had real bumper-bars. At least it is at peace.

This is a burnt-out Holden and an XR Ford pigeon-pair.

This 1973 Falcon ragtop coupe was a real surprise.

The Falcon GT (XB) Hardtop is famous for several reasons, including that Alan Moffat drove one to victory in the 1974 Sandown 250 and in 1976 drove one to win the Australian Touring Car Championship.

The next year Moffat drove both an XB Falcon GT Hardtop and an XC Falcon GS Hardtop to again win the 1977 Australian Touring Car Championship.

The second reason for this beast’s fame is its role as a film star.

As the Wikipedia page for the XB Falcon notes:

In the 1979 film Mad Max, the title character’s black “Pursuit Special” was a 351 cu in (5.8 L) version of a 1973 Ford XB GT Falcon Hardtop. Two 1974 XB sedans were also used as Main Force Patrol Interceptor vehicles. More Falcons were used to depict the Pursuit Special in sequels Mad Max 2 (1981) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). A Falcon GT (XB) Hardtop is the subject of Eric Bana’s 2009 documentary film Love the Beast. The film documents the 25-year history of Bana’s Falcon, which he purchased at the age of 15.

Finally, my Dad—now passed for some years— drove one of these 1966 Ford Falcon XR station-wagons for a few years. This one is obviously undergoing the slow process of returning to nature, starting with a small tree where the engine block used to be.

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You can see more bush wrecks at the series of “Wreck of the Week” posts at my good mate Robbo’s excellent blog, “Biting The Dust” – hit the link and follow your nose.