The original owner Mr P.O. Fysh (sitting in the front passenger seat) in 1906
The chances of this being the same car seemed remote, because these cars were popular in Australia and New Zealand, but Gordon told me to check a couple of points. Did the original engine have a repair at the back of the cylinder block ? Yes, it did. Did it have a modified drive shaft ? Yes. Was the rim missing off the single headlamp? It had been kicked off by a horse that had shied at the car as it was going up Pontville Hill. I could not say as I did not have the lamp. Perhaps it was the same car, or perhaps they all had modified drive shafts and repairs at the back of the block. But it seemed more likely that I had the Fysh car.
I was intrigued, so I did some research on Flinders Island by working backwards. Walter Bryant had acquired the car in 1925 from a Mr Costa of Emitta after it had broken down. Mr Costa had since died, but his son, George, was still on the island. I contacted him. He was delighted to hear from me and told me that his father had bought the car from a Mr Burbury of Launceston in 1920, and it had previously belonged to Mr P.O.Fysh. He still had the headlamp: would I like it? Yes please! When the headlamp arrived, the rim was missing. He also sent me one of the original Powell & Hanmer side lamps.
All the evidence pointed to the wreck in my shed being the Fysh car. But the colour was a problem. The main colour on my car appeared to be a light gray with red and black line work, just as I have restored it. The car in the Fysh photograph seems to be a dark colour (probably maroon, since I found maroon paint when I rubbed back the scuttle) without obvious ornamentation. The mudguards were different, too. But the colour must have been changed and the mudguards strengthened and a windscreen added during the time Mr Burbury owned it. I am certain that I have P.O.Fysh's car.
A line up of cars outside Customs House, Hobart, in 1907. The Alldays is second from the right.
Gordon told me that his father took delivery of the car from A.G.Webster and Sons of Hobart in 1906 and that it was driven to Launceston by Mr.W.S.Todd. I decided to contact Websters to see (tongue-in-cheek) if they still stocked parts. Naturally they didn't, but they were interested and put me in touch with Mr Bill Spencer who was managing director of Co-operative Motors in Hobart. The old man was fascinated to learn that I had the Alldays as he recalled that when he was a boy working at Websters, he had helped to unpack and assemble the Fysh car.
As well as being in the VCCA, I also joined the VCC of Great Britain. They were very helpful in putting me in touch with other Alldays owners, especially the Montagu Motor Museum who sent me many useful photographs of their later (1909) Alldays to assist me with the restoration.
My next task was to start restoring the car. I built a large shed for my project at our family's holiday house which was on 10 acres of land at Kingston. Later, when I married, this was to be our own family home and we still live here.
My late mother was most enthusiastic and encouraging. She spent hours sorting out broken and rotten pieces of wood and iron and putting them together like a jig-saw puzzle. I had enough material to rebuild the body which still includes some original pieces such as the little "boot lid" under the back of the rear seat and the curved scrolls in front of the rear doors. The scuttle, radiator and brass bonnet fittings are original and the mudguards are the modified ones which came with the car.
Work begins in 1962.
I had some cowhides tanned in Melbourne to match the colour of a small piece of the original upholstery which I found nailed between two pieces of wood and a local upholsterer undertook the task restoring the seats to their original studded glory. I carefully brush painted the body to match the grey I had found on the original body ( I did not feel that spraying was appropriate for the period ) and the late Kevin Cannell, who had served his apprenticeship as a coach builder, did the decorative line work for me, following the designs we could make out on the original panels.
Meanwhile the chassis was coming up well. Tony Colman repaired the rotten bits of the wheels and made me a beautiful cedar steering wheel. New springs were hand beaten by the late Joe Kremmer and a new flywheel was cast and machined by the late Stan Ditcham of R.L.Ditcham Engineering. Looking back now, I think Tony is the only survivor of all those people who helped me, free of charge or at cost price, in the original restoration.
Tyres were a problem. An original cover told me that the size should be 760x90, but at this time they were absolutely unobtainable . However, Goodyear in Hobart had a set of four brand new Dunlop 30x3 ½ tyres in stock for seven pounds each. These fitted well enough to roll the car around on, but would later need to be replaced by a more appropriate size.
Soon the car looked complete. An article in the Saturday Evening Mercury in January 1965 resulted in complete strangers giving me a pair of kerosene side lights, a complete acetylene headlamp with generator and numerous other bits and pieces. The Alldays was exhibited in two Apex Motor Shows in Launceston and was used to promote the film The Great Race in 1966, an event which saved it from destruction.
At the promotion display for "The Great Race" in 1966.
Meanwhile I was happily rallying my 1922 Daimler TT 4-20, a dark green monster which weighed two tons and had mechanical brakes on the rear wheels only. It was powered by a 4 cylinder 20 hp sleeve valve engine which was incredibly quiet. It only had 19000 miles on the clock when I got it. My friend, Nigel Bills and his family accompanied me on many of these rallies and we had many adventures in that leviathan which could seat up to nine people.
The Daimler
Now that I had a rally car, the pressure was taken off completing the Alldays, which was presenting me with a few problems. I had no ignition system whatsoever. Although I had acquired a suitable magneto, I could not work out how to drive it. The original ignition had been by trembler coil with a contact breaker driven from one of the two camshafts and mounted beneath the radiator. I did not have a proper carburettor, although one of the two engines I had acquired with the car had been modified to accept a Schebler, which also came with it. Neither engine had a water pump, and there was no lubrication system.
I heard about an Alldays engine under a house in Ulverstone and made a special trip to investigate. Yes, it was the correct engine and was complete with water pump and original carburettor, a White and Poppe. But, no, the owner, Allan Wood, would not part with it. He promised to let me know if ever he decided to sell it and that was the last I heard from him.
The car was in demand for motor shows and other events, including the promotion of the film The Great Race in August 1966. The Alldays was the centre piece of a display in Fitzgerald's Department Store in Hobart. Although it looked a bit odd with items of merchandise such as shirts and trousers displayed around it, I didn't mind. If it had not been for this display, and the fact that I stored the car in Hobart afterwards, I would not have it today.
February 7th 1967 is a day I will never forget. It would become known as Black Tuesday, the day bushfires devastated a vast area of southern Tasmania, claiming over 60 lives. I spent most of the day in a wooden classroom at the back of Huonville High School with my Year 10 students, in the dark as the power had gone off and thick smoke was billowing all around us. I parked my car outside the window so that we could use the car radio to follow the progress of the fires. We held the children at school until parents came to collect them : many had no homes to go to. At 7 pm my brother, who taught at the same school, and I made our way back to Kingston through the worst scene of desolation I have ever seen. As we approached our country home we saw that our neighbour's house had gone, as had much of the church youth camp next to us. We did not expect to find our house, which was in the middle of ten acres of bush, but as we rounded a bend in the track we were amazed to see it still standing amongst the black stalks that remained of the trees: but the garage was gone.
I walked over to the smouldering rubble and lifted some sheets of twisted roofing iron to reveal all that was left of the Daimler. The fire had been so intense that the aluminium crankcase and gearbox had melted, leaving the gears exposed. The chassis sagged to touch the ground between the axles. The shells of the huge electric headlamps stared vacantly from the ashes, the elegant fluted radiator had a gaping hole in the top, and the recently acquired diver's helmet tail lamp lay like an empty husk in the dust. Next to the Daimler lay the remains of a Fiat 503 and a Fiat 501, in similar condition to their larger stable mate. Three Fiat 509's that had been stored in the open had fared better, having only lost their bodies and a few tyres.
I had also lost a large collection of veteran and vintage bits and pieces like magnetos and lamps that had been given to me by an old fellow who had spent his life in the automotive industry. The original headlamp, and sidelamp off the Alldays had gone, along with the Schebler carburettor and magneto. I had also lost one of the Alldays engines.
I suppose at any other time I would have wept, but my loss seemed so trivial compared with what others had endured, that I was simply thankful that the Alldays and the house had survived.
The events of early 1967 stalled further work on the Alldays as I had to set about rebuilding the garage and concentrating on my forthcoming marriage.
Married life and soon the responsibilities of parenthood, along with a more demanding job, caused me to put veteran cars to one side for a few years: and the years became decades. The Alldays spent most of this time in museums in the southern Tasmanian towns of Brighton, Richmond and finally at Ranelagh.
One of the biggest problems preventing its completion was the lack of any carburation or ignition systems, both having been lost in the fire.
Then, about five years ago I received a phone call from well-known Tasmanian Veteran car enthusiast, Francis Ransley.
"I've got an engine for your Alldays." he said, "Do you want it?"
Some how, in a way unique to Francis, he had persuaded Allan Wood in Ulverstone to part with the engine that I had coveted thirty years earlier. Francis had to come south, so he brought the engine down and it took up residence under the bench in my workshop. The car was still at Ranelagh.
Then I got a call from the owner of the museum at Ranelagh to say that he was scaling down his operation and would I please collect the Alldays. This I did. Now the Alldays and the engine were in the same shed.
Meanwhile Rob and Pat Knight from Sanson, New Zealand, had contacted me. They also had a 1906 Alldays with restoration nearing completion and were visiting Tasmania. Naturally, I invited them to visit us to see our car. I discovered that Rob had done a lot of research on Alldays cars around the world, but especially in Australasia. He had heaps of material which he was happy to share with me.
While he was here, he asked if he could see what else I had. Apart from two unrestored Fiats, not much, I told him, but he was welcome to have a look at some of the junk I had down the yard. I showed him a mystery chassis that I had been given some thirty years ago. It had been found in the blackberries behind the Geeveston fire station and was in very poor condition. It included a steering column with the remains of a steering wheel, a gearbox housing and the main frame and sub frame. Rob didn't know what it was either, but took a photo of it.
When he returned to New Zealand, Rob sent the photo to the British historic car magazine "The Automobile" where it was published to see if anybody could identify it. The late Ronald Knight in England spotted it and identified it as a veteran Darracq from the remains of the column gearshift and wrote to Francis who was looking for a chassis . The message to Tasmania from an Englishman who had seen a photo taken by a New Zealander in Tasmania published in a UK magazine went something like this:
"Dear Francis: Did you know that John Teniswood has the Darracq chassis you are looking for in his yard at Kingston?"
In no time Francis was here with a trailer and I had much pleasure in giving him the chassis which would now be put to good use. While he was here he had a look at the Alldays.
"It's a pity you won't live long enough to drive it," he said.
I agreed that this was a distinct possibility, especially if I waited another thirty years. Then I confessed that I had run out of skills. Although I now had a carburettor, I still had no ignition system and I did not have a clue what to do.
"Well bring it up to me and I'll finish it," he said.
And so it was that in November 1999 the Alldays made its way to Wynyard in North western Tasmania on a trailer. Over the next twelve months Francis stripped down the chassis and rebuilt the gearbox and rear axle, replacing bearings (the rear axle bearings would fit a Mack truck), improved the braking system and made up one good motor out of the three I had, fitting it with new pistons and stainless steel valves "so that you can use unleaded petrol!". He built a complete ignition system using trembler coils and making a box to house the contact breaker which is driven from the end of the right hand cam shaft. The box sits below the radiator in front of the car and is the object of much curiosity. I explain that it is the black box flight recorder and if I ever have a prang it will give the clues as to what happened.
One evening Francis phoned and said "Listen!". I could hear a regular chuffing noise in the background.
"Is that the Alldays?" I asked.
"Yes, I've got it going."
By this time both my wife, Judy and I were feeling very frustrated by the distance between Kingston and Wynyard, but in November 2000 Francis announced that he was ready for the body on which I had been doing some work at Kingston. We loaded it onto the back of our ute and set off. In no time, with the aid of Francis' little crane, the body was back on the chassis and I was having driving lessons, just one year after I had delivered the car to Wynyard.
We left the car with Francis to have the hood bows made and the hood fitted and returned at the end of January for more driving lessons and to collect it and take it home to prepare it for the 2001 Peter Waddle Run.
The Alldays made its debut at the Peter Waddle Memorial Tour at Brighton where it created a lot of interest. Francis shadowed us in his Darracq during the run to make numerous adjustments to the carburation and ignition and to give more instructions on how to drive it! We completed the first day, but into the second day had to put the car onto a trailer to complete the course because it refused to go into top gear. This problem has since been rectified.
So I did live long enough to drive the Alldays and to rally it, thanks mainly to Francis Ransley and also to others who have helped, including Ollie Stenhall of Bridgenorth (who made a new sump plate, hand brake drum, hub cap and lots of little bits and pieces for it).
John Teniswood
SOME INTERESTING POST-SCRIPTS:
Extract from a letter written to me by Mr. George Coster of Emita, Flinders Island, dated 2nd July 1964.
The car [Alldays] was imported from England by Mr. P.O. Fysh, boot manufacturer of Launceston. Its next owner was Mr. H.H.Burberry [sic.],warehouseman of Launceston. My father bought the car from him in May 1920. It was shipped to the island about a month later. As I was only a boy of 10 at the time my memory will have to work overtime... It had a German Bosch 2 contact magneto chain driven. The carburettor was a Schebler marine type... the oiling system was a flat oil tank connected to a pump like an outsize hypodermic syringe with a two way tap on the bottom. You pumped the oil into the pump, turned the tap and pushed the plunger down again, thus every five miles... the oil was pumped direct into the crankcase on LH rear corner. The fuel supply was a semi pressurised tank, pressure being supplied by a short length of pipe from the rear cylinder exhaust pipe... to a valve, then to the top of the petrol tank. There was no vent in the cap on the tank...
The car was only on the road a few times after it came to the island owing to the condition of the unmade roads and partly because of mechanical trouble. About 25 years ago the engine was sold to Mrs Lee's brother who had it in a boat for some time. Later the shed in which the boat was stored was burnt down in a bush fire and the magneto, carburettor and pump were completely destroyed... I later sold the remains of the car to Mr W.[Walter] Bryant from whom Mr. [Merv] Gray obtained it.
Extract from a letter from Mr.Gordon Fysh of Launceston, dated 1st September 1964:
I am indeed most pleased to hear that you have my father's old car... When Merv Gray got the car some years ago I had a look at it but could not identify it because of the altered mudguards and windscreen, so concluded that it must have been one of the Hobart cars. I was not aware that Harry Burbury had owned it so conclude that he must have purchased it while I was overseas during the 1914-18 show... Do you recall that in the photo [of P.O. Fysh in the car outside the Derby Hotel] the headlight rim is missing? That happened at the top of Pontville hill when a horse feeding on the bank opposite the church jumped in front of the car and took the headlight rim as clean as a whistle.
During the time my father owned the car it certainly had no magneto on it. The commutator, as we used to call it, together with the make and break being driven off the half time shaft and situated just ahead of the radiator.
My memory is that my father bought the car in 1906 and took delivery of it in Hobart and the car was driven to Launceston by Mr.W.J.Todd who gave father driving lessons on the way north. I can well remember Father and Mr.Todd arriving home with the car one afternoon. I can also remember that the car which Father had a trial run in prior to purchasing his was a short chassis model having a swing front seat the same as Merv Gray's Star.
...I discussed the matter [of dating] with my brother and we agreed that 1906 is the correct date [when the car was delivered] because we have definite proof that Father got the Argyle in 1908 and we do not think he would have bought two cars in consecutive years as he did not buy the first of his four Napiers until 1911.
It would appear from these two letters the Mr Burbury must have been responsible for the modifications from the original, which included the swept front guards, the windscreen, the Schebler carburettor and magneto and the fancy paint job, which I have restored. I wonder what happened to the Argyle and the four Napiers.
In a later letter (3-9-64) Mr. Coster gave a description of the exhaust system:
It had twin exhausts to the muffler then a single tail pipe, all brazed together in one piece... the muffler was round, about 2ft. long and about 4 inches diameter.
On a trimming strip near Mr. Fysh's left foot [ in photo outside Derby Hotel] it stated that the car was built at the Matchless works, Birmingham. [This strip is missing.]
I had heard of a link between Alldays and Rolls-Royce . I often commented on the startling external similarity between my Alldays and the 1905 twin cylinder Rolls-Royce, which had been built by Henry Royce for the Hon. Charles Rolls to sell. This was before they reached any formal trading agreement in 1907.
I have now found another piece of information that seems to confirm the rumour of a link with at least Henry Royce. In a description of a 1907 4 cylinder Alldays being auctioned over the internet from the USA I found this:
This car was manufactured by the Alldays and Onions Pneumatic Engineering Company, Ltd., Matchless Works, in Birmingham, England. In the early days of auto making in England (1900 - 1908), Henry Royce, Alldays, Onions and Lord Montagu worked together on several projects. Alldays and Onions made stationary gas engines, farm tractors and small two cylinder cars. Supposedly, this car [ the 4 cylinder one] was built by Henry Royce in Manchester before he joined Charles Rolls in 1907 to form the Rolls-Royce Company.
