‘It must have a chrome bumper’: The women who bond over classic cars

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Tracey Walker’s love affair with cars began with a motorbike: a Kawasaki Z1, to be exact.

She rode it pillion behind her then-boyfriend on a road trip to Perth. The boyfriend was a mechanic, specialising in Fords.

Many years later, the bloke is long gone, but the love of old cars and journeys remains. Walker is the organiser of Old Girls on the Road, a community group for south-east Queensland women who own and drive classic (pre-1985) automobiles.

Tracey Walker with her 1964 Toyota Crown Station Wagon. Walker organises the Old Girls on the Road community group.

“We meet about five times a year and go for a [drive], usually out to a pub and have a counter meal,” Walker said.

Walker said the group is “more social than mechanical”.

“We talk about women’s stuff. We’ve got survivors of breast cancer, survivors of domestic abuse. There’s been a lot of friendships formed, and it’s because we’re like-minded.”

Walker, the proud owner of both a 1975 Triumph TC 2500 sedan and a 1964 Toyota Crown station wagon, founded the group in 2016.

A filmmaker, she has produced a YouTube series interviewing female classic car owners, along with four photographic calendars with the cars and their owners as the monthly stars.

Walker, her friends and their “girlie runs” feature in Driven, the new exhibition at the Queensland State Library focused on automotive culture, opening on Saturday.

“I love that Tracey has rules around who can join the group,” said the exhibition’s curator, Anna Thurgood. “The car has to be registered in the woman’s name, and also it must have a chrome bumper.”

Driven draws on the library’s collection of old road signs, photographs and home movies.

Roadside attractions in the form of Australia’s “big things” are included, as well as an enormous inflatable car created by artist Robert Moore.

Relics from the archives of the RACQ, which is celebrating its centenary, also feature.

“Cars are there the whole way through your life. You’re brought home from hospital in a car, [there’s] first dates, weddings, and lots of us take our final ride in the car in the form of a hearse,” Thurgood said.

The exhibition will launch on December 6 with a display of cars outside the library, slot car racing, and a pop-up ‘drive-in’ cinema showing Mad Max: Fury Road.

A road safety poster circa 1939-1957 from the Queensland State Archives, featured in the <i>Driven</i> exhibition.

“We’ve got car seats that have been salvaged and reimagined into theatre seats,” Thurgood said.

Walker said that the appeal of the “old girls” is their design.

“To me, new cars all look very much the same, but with older cars, you can immediately say, oh, that’s a Valiant, that’s a Holden, or that’s a Ford. They’re very distinctive.”

The other virtue of classic cars? The way they hold their value.

“If you buy an older car, it’s not going to depreciate the minute you drive it away. And if you don’t spend an awful lot on them, you can generally make a little bit more when you sell them.”

Driven: Every Car Has a Story runs at the SLQ Gallery daily from December 6 to February 8, with free admission.