By Mikayla van Loon
Lady Pamela Vestey’s 21st birthday gift, a Sunbeam-Talbot Ten car, returned to its ancestral home in the Yarra Valley, making a special trip to meet and greet visiting Vestey family.
In September, Star Mail covered the official unveiling of the vehicle after being brought back to its original working condition.
Putting it to the test, restorers Terry Sully and Mal Clark travelled from Mitcham to Coldstream on Friday 8 November.
Flagging it off from Ringwood at 9am, Mr Clark had the honours of driving the 1939 vehicle, while Mr Sully followed closely behind in another rare 1970 Sunbeam car, packed with extra fuel and equipment just in case.
Describing the drive over as “interesting”, Mr Clark said it wasn’t so bumpy but a slow, cautious and nerve wracking drive.
“Actually the best part of the car is the suspension but it’s the brakes, you really have to plant your foot,” he said.
“Cars these days have what are called hydraulic brakes but this just has cables. And then the gearbox is what is called a crashbox, I don’t think there’s any synchromesh in any of the gears.”
But according to Mr Sully, “if you know what to do, you don’t have any issue”.
Allowing an hour and a half to travel from Ringwood to Coldstream, Mr Sully said “it’s very slow”.
“With modern traffic, it’s not good because if somebody pulls up in a hurry in front of you it is hard to stop,” he said.
“But it’s good to get the old thing out. This is the furthest it’s driven for many a year.”
In the seven weeks since the unveiling of the car, Mr Sully said he and Mr Clark have continued to repair and restore the historic motor vehicle, ready for its visit to Coombe Yarra Valley.
“We’ve spent five and a half weeks just going through it and we’ve pulled part of the engine apart because it hadn’t been used for 70 odd years,” Mr Sully said.
“We managed to get old stock from Mackay Rubber here in Australia. They had original stock for that car, so we put new radiator hoses on it, and we just cleaned it all up and did general work on it.”
Arriving at what is the ancestral home of Lady Pamela Vestey, as the granddaughter of Dame Nellie Melba, and what became her own home, the vehicle pulled into the driveway of Coombe Cottage, fitting the scenery entirely.
Visiting from the United Kingdom and staying at the family estate, Lady Vestey’s granddaughter, the honourable Saffron Foster, welcomed the visit and said she could see why her grandmother loved the car.
Commenting on the beauty of the vehicle, Ms Foster said it was such a pleasure to see it back at Coombe and in its former glory.
As custodians of the Coombe Estate, the descendants of Dame Nellie Melba visit the home at least once a year.
Coombe Cottage was built at the request of Melba in 1912 and was where she truly called home.
She travelled with a small painting of the ocean because it signified the journey home to Coombe and always ended her shows with the song Home Sweet Home.
Wanting Coombe to remain exactly as it was when she lived there, the family have essentially kept it untouched, maintaining the 80 acre grounds and undergoing the difficult task of restoring the cottage.
Lady Vestey was the first to take guardianship of the property, where she too lived until her death in 2011.
For Mr Sully, being able to be a small part of this and bring the family some joy in seeing the car, he said “it’s fantastic”.
“I think the family is very happy to see it come back to where it came from.”
