By Jeremy Cook
Allora man Doug Partington was just 14 years old when he fulfilled his need for speed and bought his first racing car.
Spotted for sale in a Courier Mail newspaper advertisement, the then disassembled Wikner Ford Special was snapped up quickly by Mr Partington for just 14 pounds.
He spent several years reassembling the car before realising the old vintage race car perhaps wasn’t as fast as his need for speed required and quickly sidelined it to the garage in favour of faster and more modern feats of engineering.
About 66 years later, Mr Partington, who proudly displayed his old but prized slice of history at Stanthorpe’s Monster Motor Show and Swap Meet on Saturday, holds the car close to his heart for reasons he would only learn later on in life.
“It’s become my life this car,” he said.
Mr Partington would go on to race the vehicle extensively in not just Australia but even in the United States on some of the country’s most famous race tracks.
“I had the opportunity to take it to America and have it in America for three years where I ran on some of the very famous old racing tracks over there, which was an incredible experience,” he said.
“I bet it’s the only car in this room that has lapped the high banks of Indianapolis.”
But up until 1994, the car spent years collecting dust and barely left the garage. It was only when Mr Partington was contacted by a Model T Ford enthusiast that year that he learnt of the car’s full extraordinary history.
The enthusiast was sure there were photos of Mr Partington’s race car in a book called The Flight of the Halifax. So, he tracked down the book and what followed was a period of enlightenment for Mr Partington who is now known to be the owner of Australia’s oldest logbook-registered racing car.
“The car has incredible history,” he said.
“It was built by a man who wanted to build airplanes but he couldn’t build airplanes because he didn’t have enough money.
“So he built the car.”
That man was pioneering Australian aviator Captain Geoff Wikner who, alongside brother Roy Wikner, built the Wikner Ford Special from old Ford T parts in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney in 1922.
“Then he got backers from that exercise to build airplanes and he became quite famous in England building airplanes,” Mr Partington said.
“He left the car behind in Australia to pay his rent and when I was 14 in 1958, I bought it for 14 pounds.”
The car’s storied past was detailed in the book later uncovered by Mr Partington, prompting an almost relentless pursuit to restore the vehicle fully and get it back on the race track.
The Wikner Ford Special is now a star attraction at any event it attends, including at Stanthorpe’s Swap and Meet on Saturday. It has made several appearances at the Leyburn Sprints as well as and perhaps most famously at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2019.
“That was a pretty incredible experience and the Americans treated me incredibly well,” Mr Partington said.
“Covid got in the way and so we brought the car home.
“But the experiences I had over there … I was able to register it and drive it on the road. So we went in some historic rallies as well as races.”
He said he was in the process of passing the vehicle on to his eldest son.
“I’m passing it on to my elder son who will become its custodian.
“It’ll never really have an owner.”
