Dodge Brothers Club of Australasia (inc)

It's quite normal for people to show a passing interest in old cars when they see them, but interest in Ian McCorkelle's 1926 Dodge ambulance is often much more than that.

People often stop him wanting to have a look or take a photo of his old ambulance, he has even been followed home so they could have a closer look, but this time was a little different. He and wife, Joy, were driving through the South Australian town of Loxton on their way to the recent National Rally in the Barossa Valley when they were overtaken and waved down by a local wanting them to turn around and head back into town. It seems the local hospital was celebrating its centenary and also opening a new wing and wanted the ambulance to be part of it, so he and Joy obligingly turned back and drove back to the hospital where they put it on display for a short time before resuming their journey. Ian's old Dodge is a rare vehicle with a long and well-documented history as told in the following story Ian has written for us. U ntil 1922 all ambulance services in rural Victoria were undertaken from Melbourne. On December 8th that year a meeting of people from rural communities was held in Melbourne and from that a committee was formed for the purpose of organizing ambulance facilities in country districts.

This committee resolved to create at least 30 stations across the state. All shire secretaries, bush nursing and country hospitals were noti?ed that the country division of the Victorian Civil Ambulance Service had been inaugurated

On March 16, 1923 the chairman received £1000 for the purpose of equipping three country centres with Model T Ford ambulances. It was decided to send these ambulances to the Alberton, Upper Yarra and Waranga shires.

Volunteer ambulance drivers were paid three shillings per hour and ambulance services were one shilling and sixpence per mile with a minimum charge of seven shillings and sixpence. Waiting or delays were charged at two shillings and sixpence per 30 minutes or part thereof.

In early 1927 the Alberton Shire's Model T Ford was replaced by a Dodge, which was kept at the Yarram Motor Garage where the proprietor, Chris Mason and his son, Fred, were the regular drivers.

'They drove the ambulance from 1927 until it was retired in 1952, having travelled a mere 7100 miles.

In 1953 it was sold to the Yarram and District Hospital for £175 where it was stripped of its interior things and the signage painted over. For the next 13 years it was used as a general purpose van picking up fish from Port Albert on Fridays, collecting parcels from the railway station, ferrying laundry back and forth to the maternity hospital annex, and taking rubbish to the tip.

When the hospital bought a second-hand, very low-mileage FX Holden Ute the Dodge was sold to Stan Smith at Mirboo North, a well-known collector of steam engines. Stan ran a garage and kept the Dodge out the back of the workshop where it was spotted by Roger McCullum who was lost and had stopped at the garage to ask for directions.

In a moment of weakness Stan sold the ambulance to Roger who took it to Melbourne where it was repainted, made roadworthy, registered and used by him to travel to Melbourne University.

Bill Kater and his son, Michael, bought it for $600 in 1969 after Roger moved to Sydney, but it languished at their place until 1979 when a friend tipped me off that it was for sale.

I bought it for $1200 and took it back to Yarram where, by co-incidence, I was living at the time.

The first problem I had was how to get it into my shed. Fortunately the shed didn't have a brick front and had swing doors, so I was able cut an aperture above one door to squeeze the clerestory part of the ambulance's roof to pass through. I then had to remember to stop before hitting the next roof truss!

The arrival of the ambulance at home was met with a rather cool reception as the cost of it amounted to the return ?flight of a 'surprise' trip overseas organized to occur a month later.

Being the sole survivor of the Victorian Ambulance Fleet I decided that anything I did should not interfere with the integrity of the vehicle.

But where to start ?... My first thought was that this should be fairly easy as the ambulance had been in Yarram for nearly 40 years, therefore local knowledge would be readily available - what went where, did it have this or that, etc. How wrong I was !. I couldn't find anyone who could remember it as an ambulance; their only memories were from when it was a hospitalvan.

Both Chris and Fred Mason had died and Mrs Mason had never gone near the garage. I got in touch with a woman who, as a 16-year-old, had worked in the garage office and one of her duties had been to mop out the ambulance after it had been used, but unfortunately she couldn't remember anything about it. This was very disappointing and slowed things down dramatically.

Brass door catches, pad bolts and a small brass ship's bell were purchased in England on our 'surprise' trip, and brought back as hand luggage. On taking the ambulance to Melbourne for the film 'Squizzy Taylor', I called in at the head office of Ambulance Victoria where I was invited to view the archives - an expandable cardboard file in the bottom of a Brownbuilt cupboard. Among the material was a photo of the rear of an ambulance and another of two officers loading a patient. What a find !. Restoration then began in earnest. Armed with the photos the first job was the build the rear steps, which were missing. I purchased a blacksmith's forge and had an anvil, but unfortunately the skill didn't match the enthusiasm. One day when tinkering with the forge an elderly neighbour appeared after hearing the ringing of the anvil. He had been a blacksmith at the Victorian Railways Workshops in Bendigo for 52 years, so I asked him for advice in undertaking the job. The advantage of blacksmithing, he told me, was that if you messed up you could just put it back in the forge and start again! with that, he left me to it... great! After several attempts, and a little cheating with an arc welder, the steps were finished. The ambulance interior was lined with plywood and painted. The floor was next, and it and the rear steps were covered in lino. It was the same brown lino that was used in state schools and government offices, so locating some should not have been a problem. Wrong again!

During the asbestos crisis in the 1970's it had been removed and buried, but with the help of a friend I managed to find some that had 'fallen off the back of a truck' on the way to the tip. I was offered the rolled-up leftovers.

Old lino is extremely brittle and a lot of time was spent unrolling pieces only to find they were unsuitable. Eventually enough was found and a donation was made to the Scouts.

A new tongue-and-groove floor was laid and the lino carefully fitted. A new sliding communication window was made through to the cabin and runners for the stretcher were fitted. The first-aid box was scaled up using the original photo. I managed to find a suitable door, but had great difficulty locating the correct catch ' reproduction latches are now readily available!

What I didn't have was the correct stretcher, but after displaying the ambulance at the opening of the new Bendigo Ambulance Station, the Deputy Superintendent offered me a stretcher he had acquired many years previously. Shortly afterwards I was offered a matching trolley that would have met the ambulance at the hospital. It has a pair of 22-inch solid rubber bicycle wheels fitted in the centre and a pair of small casters at one end. It was well balanced and could be manoeuvred easily and the large wheels allowed it to mount steps. Whilst this was going on I found out that the roof-mounted bells used on the ambulances were off former Melbourne cable trams. Getting one proved very dif?cult, but I was eventually able to get one of a pair of copies that had been cast from an original bell. By now the ambulance was fairly complete. The only remaining task was to fit the two seats for medical staff, which was done in 2009. Some 30 years after I began the project it was finally complete.

Ian McCorkelle