Craig Reeves shares his affinity for two very different Australian-built cars.

It’s a bright August morning in Melbourne. We’re on the way to meet Craig Reeves on the north-western fringe of the city. It’s cold on foot, but the sun occasionally rewards us as we pass a famous Melbourne market on Queen Street.

We meet Craig at one of the many coffee shops in West Melbourne. This one is just a stone’s throw from his house. He has an album of photos tucked under his arm and suggests we take a seat outside to lap up the unseasonal warmth and occasional ding of trams passing by.

We order a hot drink and pore over a photo album documenting the restoration of Craig’s 1967 Morris Mini Cooper S before heading home to chat about his short stint at the Ford Motor Company in Broadmeadows and meet his Statesman de Ville and Zetland-built Mini.

Part 1 – The Early Days

East Coast Hopping

Taking a seat on a milk crate in the garage at the rear of his house, we begin by asking Craig about his upbringing and what the family cars were growing up.

“Well, I was born in Melbourne but raised in Sydney. I finished my high school and university studies in Sydney and my first job was with Esso in Bass Strait, so that was how I got back to Victoria.

 “In terms of the cars we had growing up in Sydney, they were generally work cars. That was quite common in those days. Through the years, my dad had a mixture of Holdens, Fords and then Valiants. Dad worked for a company for a while and all they bought was Valiants, so we had a string of them in the driveway.

“I learned to drive in a Volkswagen 1300 Beetle. The first car I owned was a Mazda 1300 station wagon, but I looked after my uncle’s Morris 1100 automatic for around 18 months when he was overseas. That was the first car I had to drive around.”

Broady Beginnings

Having commenced his career as a mechanical engineer in oil and gas, Craig made his way back to the big smoke in the late eighties. At the time, Ford Australia was booming.

“As a mechanical engineer, I had always wanted to work in the auto industry. My uncle spent most of his working career with Ford. All up, he probably worked there for over 40 years.

I decided I wanted to live in Melbourne. At the time, I had a good mate who was working for Ford in ‘Broady’ and he happened to flick the job ad to me. He knew I was interested in working out there, so I applied for it and was lucky enough to get the job.”

And so, Craig joined the thousands of Australians earning a living from the Blue Oval.

“I remember walking around the plant on my first day as a facilities engineer and learning a lot of different terms. The Broadmeadows factory had different plants plus the new paint shop, so I got lost plenty of times. It was an incredibly large facility and I found it fascinating with the different conveyers and equipment that was used to put the cars together. As a mechanical engineer, it was awe-inspiring.

“When I arrived, they couldn’t build enough cars. One of the upgrades that I was working on was taking the capacity to 597 units per day. That was the same time that Jacques Nasser arrived at Ford and I was lucky enough to be invited to a dinner where he spoke to some of the managers out there. It was one of his first public outings in Australia. He was an amazing guy.”

Learnings from the Factory

The car industry was far removed from what Craig was used to.

“Having come from the oil and gas industry where projects of $200 million dollars were the norm, I went into Ford to upgrade the spray booth and that was a $2-million-dollar project. It was the largest project they had going on in the plant. You learned how to do things for a lot less than we did in the oil industry. You had no choice but to think of clever ways to solve problems.

“As part of a restructure, the facilities group was shut down. I then moved to become a facilities engineer within the paint shop. We were building the Mercury Capri for the US market at the time and whenever there was an issue, it was all hands on deck to make sure we met the quality standards that the US was looking for. It was a totally different model. It was built under the John Button car plan which was seen as an expansion and a way to ensure the future of the plant.

“Ford were in a very competitive industry and needed to keep the price of building cars as low as possible, so they were always thinking about how to get as much bang for their buck as they could. They had spent enough money on the plant to keep it up to date, even though there were some areas where we were probably behind the times as a manufacturing facility. It certainly wasn’t from the dark ages.”

A Quick Turnaround

Signs of ill-health soon beset the Broadmeadows facility as sales faltered.

“I loved working at Ford to start with, but toward the end, it all went downhill. When I arrived, they were going gangbusters, but within 12 months, the bottom started to fall out of the car market and things became really tight. It just wasn’t fun anymore.

“The turnaround in the space of 12 months was incredible. You started to get the feeling that they were struggling to produce cars at a price that would continue to justify investment in Australia. I casually mentioned to one of my mates when we were at a barbeque that I was thinking of moving on. I was offered a job the following Monday at Worley, where I spent the rest of my career.”

Part 2 - The Classics

Surrounded by a couple of classic cars Craig has acquired over the years, we finally run out of questions about his time at Ford.

“Hooray, let’s get onto the exciting stuff,” laughs Craig.

We start off with what’s hiding in the corner.

The Mini

“It’s a 1967 Mini Cooper S built at the Zetland plant in Sydney,” he confirms.

“The story goes, my brother-in-law and my sister were living in a place called Tambar Springs. My brother-in-law, Marcus, found it in a farmer’s barn and purchased it in 1996 as a restoration project.

“They were starting a young family in those days and my sister told him that there was no way known that they could afford for him to have a toy like that and that he should look at selling it on. I was lucky enough to pay them a visit around the time this conversation was going on. I said to Marcus, ‘I will buy it off you and pay you to restore it for me’.

“That was how the Mini came into my life.”

A Second Chance

When it comes to restorations, this one was about as extensive as they come.

“It was a full strip-down to bare metal. There was a fair bit of rust in it and a lot of bits and pieces were cut out of it and replaced. It was basically a rebuild of the car.

“The engine was rebuilt by a guy in Tenterfield who is renowned as the best at Minis in Australia. It is now a 1310, rather than a 1275. That sort of rebore was quite common when they were rebuilding them. It’s quite a sporty little motor.

“When Marcus bought it, it had twin Webers on it, but I had it converted back to the original SU carburettors. It’s a little more period correct than it was with the Webers on it. In hindsight, it didn’t really need to be done, but it keeps the car truer to how it came from the factory. The motor is still the original one that came with the car when it was built.”

Four Cylinders of Fun

Even after two decades of ownership, the exhilaration of driving the Cooper S has never waned for Craig.

“I love it. It’s still, out of all the cars I have driven, the one I come back to. It’s very responsive and it handles beautifully.

“Kids love it too. They’ll tend to wave and smile when I take it out. Interestingly, a lot of people don’t know what it is. Even when you see it beside a new Mini, you have to look up to see the passengers. You don’t realise how small of a car it is because it’s relatively spacious inside. It’s a very efficient design.

“I take it out around once a fortnight. It’s important to keep it running, even if it’s just a blast up the freeway to get everything warmed up and the battery charged. It has no problems at all keeping up with modern traffic, though it does get a bit noisy and rattly at 100 kilometres per hour!”

The Statesman

And so, we move on to the barge in the centre of the garage. Craig smiles when we ask how the General Motors-Holden luxury sedan found its way to West Melbourne.

“The father of my dear friend Virginia was the original owner of the Statesman de Ville. He was a Holden dealer. He and his brother took over the Holden dealership in Biloela in Central Queensland and it was his personal car.

“I had seen it in his garage in Brisbane when we were staying at his place and he proudly showed it to me. All up, I have probably known of the car for about 10 years and it’s been off the road for all that time. He had kept it running, but it was basically sitting in the garage down the end of the garden in Brisbane.

“I took a trip up to have a look at it earlier this year. It wasn’t running but we rolled it out of the shed. There were a couple of things that attracted me to it, but the fact that it had no rust at all in the typical places where HQ Holdens rust was incredible. It has a great paint job and an immaculate interior. The front seats have been retrimmed, but the rear seats are original. The carpets have always been covered. It still has things like the original cover for the spare wheel in the boot. Little things like that really drew me to the car.”

Back on the Road

Just weeks ago, the Statesman was up on the hoist at Leo’s Way Auto Repairs in West Melbourne after the big trip from Brisbane in the back of a truck.

“I dropped it into Leo’s shop as soon as it arrived in Melbourne. It’s had fluids replaced, a new fuel pump put in, the carburettor has been rebuilt, some hoses have been replaced, it has a new master cylinder. It was just general maintenance stuff that you would do over time.”

We can’t help but to ask about that first drive.

“The first thing you notice is that while it’s an enormous car, the seat doesn’t go back as far as I would like. It also has a skinny plastic steering wheel, where I’m much more used to the thicker, rubberised steering wheels you get now. When you drive it, you certainly adopt a more laid back, cruisy sort of attitude. It’s a big barge to drive, but it’s really comfortable.

“I have had people running across carparks to grab me and talk to me about it. It features in a lot of photos. When I’m sitting in traffic, people will gesture at me to wind down the window and say how good it is to have one of these barges back on the road. Of the cars I have, it’s the one people seem to love the most. It’s also such a big car that it’s probably hard to miss!”

Bucket List Bent Eight

“I never thought I would own a Statesman, but the opportunity came along and from my era, I think you definitely need to own one V8 in your life.

“It will be something that keeps me occupied in my retirement with little bits and pieces that will need to be done on it while being sensitive to keeping it as original as possible.

“I am about to get involved in a car club that does Sunday morning car runs once a month, so it’ll do some 200-300-kilometre trips. I can’t imagine taking it to Sydney, as I think the lack of cruise control and softness of the seats might make it pretty uncomfortable. Plus, it’s probably unfair to the old girl to expect her to go on a trip like that!”

A big thanks to Craig for inviting us into his garage to meet the odd couple and chat about his time at the Ford Motor Company. If you know of an owner with an Australian car and a story to tell, please nominate them to feature.

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