From a broken wreck in a Phillip car yard to star of this year's 'Wheels' car show

Bruce Finlayson was visiting Canberra about 15 years ago when he came across a broken-down Jeep parked out the front of one of the mechanics workshops in Phillip.

“There was no bonnet, no mudguards, and it had a motor sitting crossways in it – in other words, it wasn’t fitted,” he says.

But that didn’t matter.

“It was the same type of vehicle my sister used as the go-away vehicle when she got married in 1955, and it stuck like a burr in my head, so when I saw this, I thought, ‘That’s it’.”

The 1955 Willys Jeep Truck, now fully restored, will be sitting proudly at the front of the ‘Wheels’ car show in Queanbeyan this Sunday (16 February).

This year marks the 44th anniversary of the annual event put on by the Council of ACT Motor Clubs (CACTMC).

Hundreds of other vintage, classic and exotic cars and bikes from across the region are expected to grace the grass at the Queanbeyan Showground for several hours, alongside food trucks and stallholders.

Up until now, Shannons Insurance has been the long-running name sponsor of the event, but when the company closed its Canberra office last year, it left CACTMC scrambling to find a replacement.

Just this month, however – in the nick of time – CACTMC president Greg Francis secured a deal with Famous Insurance Brokers, based in Melbourne.

“They’re supplying even more than Shannons,” he says.

Greg is a member of the French Car Club of Canberra, and down the back of his Fraser property, he has a 1988 Peugeot 205 GTi, as well as a 1966 Volvo 122S (the first car to have seat belts as standard), a 1974 Porsche 911, and his daily driver – a 2009 Subaru Impreza WRX.

Greg knows Bruce as his gardener from Tanga Landscaping and has been working on him to bring his Jeep along to Wheels for some years.

“I’m always on his back about it,” he jokes.

You’ll probably know the story of the Willys Jeep, the grandfather of the Jeep we know today, designed in response to a request from the US military during World War II for a quarter-tonne “light reconnaissance vehicle”.

Three companies responded – Bantam, Willys and Ford – but Willys won with their porotype, dubbed ‘Quad’, which they built in 75 days.

It went on to earn its stripes on the battlefield, with accolades from the US Army Chief of Staff General George C Marshall (he of the Marshall Plan), who described it as “America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare”, and the legendary WWII reporter Ernie Pyle said it “was as faithful as a dog, as strong as a mule, and as agile as a goat”.

But come peacetime, Willys had to civilianise it. The Jeep Truck came about.

“The Americans had them with a tub on the back, but Australia said, ‘Nah, we don’t want that, we just want a flat tray’,” Bruce explains.

“So when they came out here, it was just as a cab chassis.”

He said they sold like hotcakes here, “because there was nothing else like it”.

“There were no Toyotas or Nissans then, and the Willys Jeep continued right up until Mr Toyota brought the LandCruiser out here in 1958, and – guess what – it had a cigarette lighter and a heater and floor mats, and that just killed it.”

As it turns out, Bruce uses a Toyota HiLux for his day job, and there are times when he wonders if the Jeep is too much.

“It’s enjoyable, but after a while, it gets too uncomfortable, and you get over it – you leave it in the shed and forget about it.”

But then, as we’re talking, a passing truck drives past, and the driver slows and sticks a big thumbs-up out the window. It’s the same whenever Bruce takes it to the shops.

“You’re in the car park and you just can’t get away – one person after another comes up and wants to know what it is.”

Wheels will be held at Queanbeyan Showground from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm on Sunday, 16 February, in conjunction with the Queanbeyan Market. Gold-coin donations on the day go towards Respite Care Queanbeyan.