The Incredible Citroen Journey

To celebrate the centenary of the first automotive circumnavigation of Australia, the Incredible Journey is recreating the trip in a restored Citroen

Transcript

00:00My name's Kevin Amos and I'm with The Incredible Journey.

00:20This year is the 100th anniversary of the first car to circumnavigate Australia.

00:26So what we're doing is this year, to celebrate the 100th anniversary, we're taking this tribute

00:32car right round Australia, putting it on display at schools, public events like this, so that

00:38people can recall what Australia was like 100 years ago and celebrate the courage and

00:45commitment of two guys who literally bush-bashed their way around Australia.

00:49Their original plan was to drive from Darwin, sorry, from Perth up to Darwin, but half of

00:56that trip was bush-bashing, and when they got to Darwin they basically said, no way

01:01in the world are we going back where we came from, let's keep going, and so became the

01:06first car to circumnavigate Australia.

01:09The original journey took three months to get from Perth to Darwin, and then another

01:15two months from Darwin to go right back round to Perth.

01:19When they purchased this car, it was a real wreck.

01:24The mudguards were all rusty, the wheels were absolutely shot, the upholstery on the roof

01:30and so on was all cracked and so on, and they purchased it and a vintage tractor restorer

01:40in South Australia said, send it over to me and I'll fix it up for you.

01:46So it was trucked over to South Australia and a team of guys spent 600 hours restoring

01:52it.

01:53So when you look at the car, all this sort of stuff is brand new, they actually manufactured

02:00based on what was there left, all the mudguards and reupholstered the roof and so on, so it's

02:08really 102 years old, but two years old, but the engine, the axles, the rims, the gearbox

02:16is all original.