The Pedal Power Exhibition was a great display with almost 80 pedal cars on display plus a variety of Rocking Horses, Ride-Ons, Scooters, Trikes and Trolleys.
The trolleys ranged from an original home made wooden trolley made from some rough timber and a set of wheels, to a trolley made to look like Lady Penelope’s Rolls Royce, which was a very flash trolley and made for a young girl by her father. The flashest were two trolleys that were made by an ex club member of many years ago who has now built 18 trolleys in all, with each being designed to go faster. These trolleys were almost 8 feet long with fibreglass bodies and were clocked at 106 km/h in Auckland. The designs were certainly a long way from the original wooden trolley that was on display.
The pedal cars were sourced from over 20 people in Dunedin who are not members of the club, but do have the pedal cars sitting at home. Each of the pedal cars and ride-ons had a certificate in front of the exhibit giving details of the manufacturer, model, year of manufacture and country of manufacture. Pedal cars on display ranged from real wrecks to play worn models, restored models and even modern pedal cars produced today.
Several of the wrecked bodies of the pedal cars were displayed in a shed which was constructed from old, rotten timber, a rusty iron roof and straw around the floor with some old motoring items thrown into the shed for good measure. A large number of A3 laminated prints showing pedal cars as well as various articles about pedal cars and A3 prints of the old School Training cars and roadway set ups, which used to travel around the schools in the 50s, were also on prominent display.
We also held our annual Model Car Festival 2004 and while there were plenty of die cast entries, we were low on kit-set entries, but it was good to see two of our new members enter the kit set classes. With the challenge put out by John Stanley for members to enter the next Annual General Meeting Competitions, maybe John will enter the Otago Competitions as well.
We also had a large display of Circus Models, Memorabilia and Posters that were in the main supplied by a Dunedin woman who was a former Circus Ringmaster. Many of the circus models were made by a former Ashburton man. He had left the collection to the Ashburton Museum, but they were sold off, some to the former ringmaster. The models were all made of sheet iron and, although some were very rough in construction, they were made in the late 1940s and they certainly looked the part - you could tell what the trucks were meant to represent. The steering as very detailed on most of them. Overall it was a great display of circus items.
We had originally tried to borrow the circus set that is in the possession of the Southland Branch, but because of the conditions that the Southland Branch placed on the display, we were unable to get them for the display.
All in all it was an excellent display and one the Otago Branch should be proud of setting up.
Eric Brockie