It has been a very busy time, so there hasn’t been a chance to load anything up on to the site, or this blog. By way of a catch-up, here are a few things that have turned up this month, plus a few photos of vans seen during our recent visit to New Zealand. We saw 15 in total, so we’ll load three batches of five each over the coming few days.

First, a photo of of the gathering together of J-types for the Carnivale Display in Sydney, Australia.

Carnivale-build-up-2016

Jan 26th: Peter Bateman writes: “Eight!  Only Eight beautiful J type vans attended this years Australia Day CARnivale being held for the first time at Parramatta Park, 25 Kms west of Sydney.

In previous years we had a very desirable Australia Day plot on Macquarie Street which is close to the Sydney Opera House and the centre of our Australia Day celebrations.
Parramatta Park is a long way from the original landing site of Capt. Arthur Phillip in 1788 which was near the present day Opera House but it does have historical significance. It’s in the grounds of Old Government House which is on the World Heritage List and has lots of shady trees to shelter from the sun…and occasional rain drop.  It was also our first experience of parking our vans on grass.The crowds were impressive and as usual the J type vans were a surprise to many.
Our vans were parked next to a Formula 2 Brabham on one side and Midget Speedway cars on the other.  Every so often the engine of the Brabham was started and we closed our eyes and dreamed! Later, Laurie Bellette started the Bad Billy’s V8 J type Rat Rod. Aah, REAL Heaven. We were the first convoy to leave the event and there were eight J vans being serenaded by the wonderful sound of the V8 burbling under that J type Rattie. Pure bliss. We will be there in 2017 why don’t you visit?”