Lang and Bev Kidby say the 1927 Bean is surprisingly comfortable inside. Photo: James Coleman.
Lang and Bev Kidby could hardly end their 26,000-kilometre expedition from London to Melbourne without a pitstop in Canberra.
The vintage car they’ve used for the job has quite the connection to the nation’s capital.
For more than 40 years, the Brisbane-based couple have made a name for themselves as intrepid travellers, circumnavigating the world in 99 days in a tiny Fiat 500, pushing a 1915 Willy’s car 6000 km through outback Queensland, bumping to the tip of Cape York in a 1928 Austin 7, and gathering the same five car models for a recreation of the 1907 Peking to Paris motor race.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They’ve published full reports of each trip on their blog, Next Horizon.
For 2024, however, they decided to recreate the journey of Australian adventurer Francis Birtles.
In 1927, Birtles became the first man to drive from England to Australia in his Bean 14 car, affectionally named Sundowner.
Bean, a small British car manufacturer at the time, was very keen to promote its rival to the Ford Model T and agreed to sponsor the trip.
Birtles left London on 19 October 1927 and over eight months, crossed mountains, deserts and tropical jungles in Europe, Egypt, Persia (now Iran), India, Burma and Malaya – with some sea voyages in between – only for his car to be seized by customs officials in Darwin.
A man carves out a passage for the Sundowner, possibly in India or Burma. Photo: Peter Wherrett collection, National Museum of Australia.
It took direct intervention from then prime minister Stanley Bruce for Birtles to be back on his merry way, through the outback to Brisbane, down to Sydney, and finishing outside the post office on Elizabeth Street in Melbourne where he was asked to move for “obstructing traffic”.
No one dared repeat the journey until 1955. But now, for the first time since, a Bean has done it again.
Well, technically, it’s a replica of a Bean.
The original Sundowner is held by the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, in its original condition. Photo: National Museum of Australia.
Birtles’ original Sundowner is safe inside the storage vaults of the National Museum of Australia and last saw the light of day during an exhibition in 2003.
“Today, the Sundowner’s battered, dented and scratched body still bears witness to its extraordinary journey across the world,” the museum website reads.
“Although now missing headlights, mudguards and bumper, it still appears much as it did on arriving in Melbourne in 1928, down to the traces of Middle-Eastern sand and South-East Asian mud caked on its underside.”
The Kidby’s Bean started life as a regular 1927 Bean before it was modified to match Birtles’ Sundowner. Photo: James Coleman.
While it was on display, a South Australian called David Ragless became the museum’s number-one visitor, coming nearly every day for weeks to take careful measurements of every component so he could build a near-exact replica for the 1988 Bicentennial Rally in Canberra.
This replica ended up in a museum in South Australia before Lang and Bev purchased it in early 2023 as part of a deceased estate sale, already knowing exactly what they wanted to do with it.
“We just love recreating history and bringing those early pioneers alive,” Bev says.
“Birtles has been a family hero since I was a kid,” Lang adds.
“My dad was fascinated with him because my dad was into bike riding, and Birtles rode his pushbike across Australia about 20 times before World War I, so in the 1930s, when my dad was 16, he and his 14-year-old brother pedalled their bikes from Melbourne to Townsville.”
FIVA (Federation Internationale des Vehicules Anciens), an international body that looks after concours, rallies and major events involving vintage or classic cars, came onboard to help tee up the Kidbys with various car clubs along the way.
At the wheel. Photo: James Coleman.
The couple flew the car to the UK and after a few delays, left the Brooklands Museum in London on 18 April 2024. They arrived in Canberra on Monday, 26 August, to a welcome party made up of members of the Council of ACT Motor Clubs (CACTMC).
The most memorable moment for Lang was driving through 55-degree heat in Pakistan, but apart from a few little bits and pieces, the car never let them down.
“It’s a big, heavy car with a long wheelbase, and it just lopes along and sits at speed comfortably,” he says.
How many cars can claim that many flags as bumper stickers? And can you name them all? Photo: James Coleman.
“The only thing we were frightened of the whole time was people running into us because they were driving past and trying to get a photo!” Bev adds.
“We just got the most amazing reception wherever we went.”
The journey drew to a close at the Linfox Museum in Melbourne on Saturday, with “no giant brass band finale, but just a display of the Bean in the car park and a chat to those interested”.
The Sundowner replica alongside an original 1927 Bean. Photo: James Coleman.
It’s a good feeling, says Lang. That said: “I’m over it.”
Now with a lot more kilometres on its clock but also arguably more value on account of how those kilometres were gained, the Kidbys plan to sell the Bean to fund their next trip.
“There’s always one more trip until you can’t get in and out of the car,” Lang says.
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