Today, the last day of summer in Australia we set off to visit a vintage car swap meet at Ulverstone. You may recall that we visited the same even last summer although it seems much longer ago than that.

We bought a few interesting bits and pieces which were not car related and we enjoyed looking at all the old cars. Naomi took a lot of photos both at the swap meet and later at Don where we ran into members of the local Jaguar Club out for a run. I know she intends to share her photos here in the near future so I’ll just show a bit of a teaser. I just had a lot of fun taking photos that I will hopefully find useful for upcoming photo challenges.

We always find that car people are very friendly and like to chat. They don’t mind having their treasures photographed.

One of the people we chatted to was Stephen Mott who is pictured below. We had stopped to look at this amazing old framed photo of a scene from the Penguin Hillclimb. We guessed that it was taken in the late 1950s. It was, he told us, 1958 to be exact. As we grew up in South Australia Naomi and I were not familiar with the Penguin Hillclimb event but we had been to one in South Australia many years ago. We used to go to a few motor racing events back in the 80s and 90s. Stephen told us that he was too young to remember the event himself but he knows something about it. He should do as he’s written a book about it. We bought a copy and while we were chatting we asked him how he was marketing the book. It is not widely available in shops or online at the present time. They are mostly taking it to motorsports events and car clubs. Naomi suggested that we should give the book a mention in a blog post and I thought that was an excellent idea. Obviously neither of us has had time to read the book yet but it is full of old photos which was the main attraction for us. I may review it in a future post after I’ve had a chance to read it properly. Just briefly, the Penguin Hillclimb was an event that ran from 1955-1971 over a course that was I think about 7/10s of a mile in the old money.

What is Hillclimb Racing?

Hillclimbing is one of Motorsports grass roots disciplines, where you as a driver, learn to think more about your driving and the car around you. In fact, Hillclimbing is often referred to as a “Thinking Drivers” form of motor sport, and offers you all the challenges, and experiences in testing your ability and the performance of your car whilst competing against other cars in your class on a variety of tracks.

https://hillclimbnsw.com/what-is-hillclimb-racing/

If you are interested in buying a copy of Stephen’s book you can contact him via email at penguinhillclimb@gmail.com . It is a hardcover book, well illustrated with mostly black and white photos and is for sale for $A55.