We go to Motorclassica and ignore everything that wasn't tiny and weird

Wednesday, 17 October 2018

Melbourne's Motorclassica is a world-class classic car show that features all manner of exotic and expensive cars. We ignore all of those to get excited about the tiny, weird cars.

Motorclassica is arguably the most prestigious classic car show in this part of the world. Held in the beautiful and historic Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, it regularly features some of the rarest and most mouth-watering exotic metal known to man, as well as a remarkable array of local classics.

For example, this year there was a range of classic F1 cars that had featured on the grid of the Melbourne Grand Prix over the years, some meticulously restored Delages and Bugattis (that were no doubt worth an absolute fortune), several rows of magnificently in-yer-face American muscle cars from the 60s and 70s, a beautiful and elegant Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster that was worth in excess of $1.5 million, a Ford GT race car direct from its demonstration laps at Bathurst, so many perfectly restored Italian supercars that it was difficult to count and something I truly never expected to see in this part of the world - a striking and surprisingly imposing Tucker 48 (although it is commonly called the Torpedo, that was never its official name).

The Tucker was easily my standout of the show, with its fantastically minimalist interior and iconic triple headlight front end, proudly sitting on a podium that held pride of place in the centre of the main hall. That was until I went up to the almost hidden second level, that is.

The magnificent Tucker 48 was powered by a 5.5-litre horizontally-opposed flat 6-cylinder engine mounted in the rear. And is now worth an utter fortune.

Hidden up the top with the various retail stands selling memorabilia, car-based art and weird DIY electric multi-tools, as well as a sparkling array of classic motorbikes (that, honestly, meant nothing to me), were the true gems of the show - the tiny weird cars.

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Okay, so they didn't actually call it that, but that is exactly what it was - a wondrous array of quirky micro cars, some that were wildly successful, some that were truly epic failures.

The awkward Lightburn Zeta was almost universally unloved when it was new. We can't help but love it now though...

They came from all corners of the world too, with a number of the successful and iconic Italian-designed pan-European built Isetta and German Messerschmitt micros that everyone knows, as well as an example of the utterly tiny British (or more accurately, Manx - it was built on the Isle of Man) Peel P50 which found renewed fame in the internet era when a rather tall chap called Jeremy Clarkson somehow squeezed himself into one and drove it through an office.

There was a disgustingly cute Mazda R360 - that looked rather wonderfully like a chubby, scaled down Cosmo coupe - and a brilliantly utilitarian Steyr-Puch Halflinger 4WD that weighed 630kg and yet could carry 500kg, and was used by the Australian military, among others.

The Zeta Lightburn Sports was actually a British-designed car called the Frisky built under license.

There was even the local star - the Goggomobile Dart that was developed and built in Australia between 1959 and 1961.

But the real star wasn't an obvious, successful one. Nah, the real star was a weird failure, most specifically another Australian effort - and one spectacularly unloved when new - the Lightburn Zeta.

Built between 1963 and 1966 by South Australian manufacturer of cement mixers and washing machines Lightburn & Co, the Zeta was destined to be a glorious failure right from the very start.

Initially available as a 'sedan' (actually a weird two-door wagon thing) and, rather brilliantly, a ute, the Zeta's first stumbling block was its styling. Basically it looked exactly like you would imagine a car designed by a company that makes washing machines and cement mixers would look. Which was not good.

Awkward and unwittingly dorky, the Zeta's build quality was only consistent in its sheer awfulness and things were made instantly worse by the fact that the fuel gauge was a piece of clear hose that gave nothing like an accurate picture of the fuel situation. It also had no rear hatch, so you could only access the rear cargo space by removing the front seats which, for some incomprehensible reason, was actually advertised as a positive feature.

Then there was the small issue of the Mini. Launched a few years earlier than the Zeta, by 1963 the iconic Mini was well established and, unfortunately for Lightburn, cost pretty much the same.

As a result, the public displayed a comprehensive lack of interest in the weird, unfortunate Zeta and less than 400 sedans were ever made, while just 12 utes staggered off the showroom floor.

Lightburn tried to expand the Zeta range in 1964 with a sporty model by licensing the British designed Frisky - a tiny two-seater with no doors or roof, but far cooler styling - but it was too little too late, and the company only ever made 48 before it gave up on the whole car thing in 1966 and went back to washing machines.

There were examples of all three Zeta models at Motorclassica and the sheer ugly, weird hopelessness of it made it the true star of the show. For me, at least.