EAGLE-eyed farmer Alec McCracken spotted a familiar sight when he opened The Weekly Times a couple of weeks ago.
An advertisement for our Our Towns magazine series featured Maryborough in 1949. Parked in the bottom left-hand corner was a car that, to the untrained eye, looked unexceptional but turns out it is a rare gem - at least today, anyway.
Alec, from Irymple, identified it as an Australian-built American 1935 or 1936 Nash 400.
And Alec should know, because he believes he has the only surviving 1935 Nash in Australia.
Alec says it is not the same car, for his has been in his family since World War II when his mother bought it.
She drove it until 1954 when it was consigned to the shed. It stayed there, apart from the odd stint as a paddock bomb in the 1970s.
Alec is now restoring it to its former glory. Alec said some Nash cars were assembled in Australia because the Government had slapped huge tariffs on importing fully-assembled cars in a bid to encourage local car manufacturers.
The Australian-built Nash escaped the high duty but it was tricky putting them together because not all the parts were imported and had to be made or sourced locally, Alec said.
The Australian version, built by Ruskin Motor Body Works in Melbourne, had a canvas insert in the roof, unlike the all-steel roof of the import.
Alec would love to hear from anyone who has a Nash of that era, particularly anyone with an Australian-built one. He can be contacted on 0403 867 919.
