Caltex gone, Ampol back

Been to Kanangra Walls many many times from the early sixty's to only a few months ago & never took that in, your dead wright with the add & i think a lot of us would have sat & had our photo taken there, I no I have one on the point some where from when i was a kid, will have to check out the movie
Thanks Bob for that bit of trivia

Massive expense in changing all the signage etc for what? Still owned by Chevron!

Chevron hasn't owners it for years. Hence the name change.

Thanks My mistake. shouldn't have used google to get facts

Mark C9 , I remember reading a couple of months back when this was announced that they were/are paying in the vicinity of 20 million a year to use the Caltex branding name so it is probably worth the effort to change back

"Those rutted tracks in the video are now designated National Highways.".

Correct. But they are still rutted tracks :)

OBJ

Loved the front bar on the Zeta looked like it wouldn't even protect anything bigger than a rabbit strike if that. :)

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Dunc, that wasn't a roo-bar on the front of the Zeta. That's the handle to carry it with. lol

A great vehicle cut down in it's prime through lack of finance. A sad loss.
Dave.

But out of date by the time it was introduced - eclipsed by the mini and newer japanese models coming on line at the time - if it had been built in the early 50s rather than the mid 60s it would have probably been a success - and had time to evolve as more sophisticated small cars were introduced in the 60s.

Lightburn was certainly a multi-faceted company in their prime.

In mid ‘60’s, when I started work, Lightburn hydraulic jacks were supplied in new Bedford trucks, and perhaps many other commercial vehicles. Noticed in the video, the Zeta drivers were using one to change a tyre.

Almost all small tradie or handyman cement mixers were Lightburn, driven by, back in the day, Villiers engines or electric motors.

At one stage, I needed a robust washing machine, to survive the rigours of my teenage staff. A Lightburn twin tub, resembling part of a cement mixer, was chosen because I’d seen the Australian Army using them.Well, they may have worked for the military but, despite expensive repairs, they couldn’t hack life on a station!

Maybe there’ll be a resurgence of similar companies in the years to come, after the virus subsides?

Bob

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Lightburn certainly were "multi-faceted" Bob. They'd have a go at anything. But they did produce SOME good products. Their hydraulic jacks were first class. In fact I suspect that some of their problems were the quality being higher than people were prepared to pay for. Their production runs were too small for economical manufacturing. Forever launching into new ideas and products before sorting out the existing ones. They made a fair concrete mixer but translated its design concepts to a clothes washing machine as you instanced. We had some of those at Woomera and they were bl00dy awful things.

They had engineering management on the factory floor much of the time solving problems.
I had some dealings with them in the 60's advising on instrumentation needs such as temperature control on behalf of my company Foxboro, an American instrumentation manufacturer. They loved me as they got my guidance free of charge. Their fibreglass moulding line for the Zeta was something to behold. It was a collection of timber/masonite moulds and stuff everywhere.
It was inevitable that the company would not last!

Bob Y talks about a Lightburn twin tub washing machine, one place I worked in Western NSW we used to use a Lightburn cement mixer as a washing machine, was probably the cleanest my work gear ever was until I got married.

The Lightburn washing machine we had on our farm in the '50's was like a cement mixer with a spin dryer mounted in front of the bowl so you could pull the wet clothes out and straight into the spin dryer:



Bob, is that your up-market twin-tub at the bottom left! The boys would never have broken the one we had - except perhaps the spin dryer. It had no imbalance cut-out, so if it was out of balance it would thrash around until someone rescued it.

Was the "cement mixer" type, Frank. Those young blokes didn't respect such a labour saving device.

That old advertisement is a gem, good enough to frame.

Bob

Hardly milking motorists in that example. If they're stupid or lazy enough to pay the higher price they deserve to have their wallets lightened. With the availability of fuel pricing apps etc they've got no excuses.

Regards

What about Esso Phil, to put a Tiger in your tank....lol

Amoco - "It's nice going with Amoco"

and Total. Can't remember its slogan

I so not want the Amoco final filter back. Was agony sometimes with slow delivery, especially with a 36 gallon tank to fill.

EDIT: I do miss the $18 to fill it though.

Yeah, I picked Golden Fleece because it was Aussie and I like seeing the old signs and bowsers in the Museums.
"Tiger in your tank"....haha.... what were they thinking?

Remember the fake tiger tails you could hang from the filler cap?

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gke,.... I now know your age! lol
I also remember the young women dressed in tiger-skin body suits who would writhe over your bonnet and clean the windscreen while you filled up....... with petrol, that is.
Only at some servos..... others gave out steak knives.

Can't find any on-line photos of these window-cleaning tigers to show you. Nobody had phones-with-cameras in those days. Maybe it never happened..... just a figment of my over-active imagination?

This young lady worked at Golden Fleece. And there is a toasted sandwich vending machine on the wall behind her!

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The ones I remembered were skin-tight outfits...... but the above is pretty close! lol
How come you got the photo Phil? Did you marry her?

Nah, sadly I found her on google - photo came from 1975 so not that long ago and taken in Melbourne :-)

I did better than that - met my wife in Alice Springs in 1979 and from the start she knew how to make a toasted sandwich.
I'm guessing your lady in the tiger suit was one of South Australia's best kept secrets. Did you marry her? :-)

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Yep, South Australia, and pretty conservative in the 60's.
Marry her? Nah, she scared the pants off me...... figuratively speaking of course!!!

A toasted sandwich vending machine ?! Were the sandwiches any good?

No but she was.

Frank, Amoco had the best TV ads, fast convertibles with the jingle, " Amoco in your machine", very smart ads for the time, 70s I'm thinking. Michael.

Where did you say the sandwich machine was???
:)
OBJ

Obj, you’ve gotta look past the girl! LOL

Sorry Gazz, I just got the pic from Google. But I must say it had a familiar look to me too. And I thought it was near Camberwell in Vic.

Boobook

I guess a lot of the Ampol servos looked the same - it's just that I remember that pinky coloured house in the background !

Cheers

Gazz

The parked car has an older Qld number plate so logically up there somewhere.

Do a reverse google image search

Howdy Guys

Well - I actually drove past the servo that I thought it was today and sadly it is no longer there - been a vacant sight for a couple of years. Stopped to check out the house in the background but the site was fenced off and I couldn't get a good look as it was cover in a vine. But after a sticky down the side of the house from the street I could tell it's not the one I thought but very very similar.

Cheers

Gazz