Club History
Cadillac LaSalle Clubs of Australia
The original Cadillac LaSalle Club of Australia formed in 1970 was disbanded in 1992. New Clubs were then formed in each of NSW, Vic, Qld and SA, plus WA in 2005, five clubs in total.
Despite this, our Aussie Clubs continue to administer membership dues on a national basis, to provide liability insurance cover for all of the Clubs on a national basis, and of course to produce our quarterly LaCad magazine using contributions received from all regions.
Affiliation with US Cadillac LaSalle Club
The idea of forming a Cadillac LaSalle Club in Australia arose from Sydney man Ken Moss’ experience of the hospitality, assistance and friendships encountered with the US club and its members during his 1965 trip across America with his family in his 1912 Cadillac.
Ken’s friendship with Norm Uhlir, President of the US Cadillac and LaSalle Club from 1962-1972. Norm encouraged Ken to form an Aussie club, and visited Sydney in 1970. Norm enjoyed the pride and satisfaction of contributing to the formation and some of the success of the Aussie club, as well as maintaining a close friendship with Mossie that lasted until Mossie’s death in 1997.
However the club could not become an official region of the US club due to a rule in their constitution that all members of a region had to be paid-up members of the national US club as well. A bare handful of Aussies were members of the US national club. Instead we became an international affiliate of the Cadillac and LaSalle Club Inc.
Volunteers
Some readers may be surprised to learn that every person who has contributed to the development and progress of this club has made their contribution without expectation of payment – yes, we have been and continue to be volunteers.
The success of this club is even more remarkable when it is realised that all of our helpers and contributors over the past fifty years have had the desire to help other people and to make the club better.
If you perceive a problem with something in the Club, think before you contact the person you think is responsible. The Club is not a workplace, that person is not an employee, and people who think they can do better are likely to be invited to take over.
Unofficial “Cadillac Club” in Sydney – late 1960s
There were a number of owners of older (20-30-year-old) Cadillacs around Sydney’s suburbs in the late sixties. They came to know each other, met others through friends of friends and began to socialise on a very casual basis and sometimes drive somewhere together. When an official Cadillac Club got started, there was a range of owners of all sorts of models who already knew each other.
At that time it was not unusual for some Australians to be driving vintage cars (built 1919-1929) as everyday transport, as newer cars were still out of reach for some, and old cars were preferred by others. Restoring veteran cars had become a popular pastime and a new hobby and Veteran Car Clubs were formed in some states in the fifties (1954 in NSW, 1955 in Vic), as were clubs for vintage sports cars, and later for other vintage cars. There was little enthusiast interest in “classic cars” because these were still plentiful in good condition, and not appealing at the time.
There were no clubs for individual makes except Rolls-Royce, and in the late sixties Packardand Buick clubs were formed in NSW – these were the first one-make car clubs in Australia.
The Cadillac LaSalle Club of Australia was born out of the Veteran Car Club of NSW, withthe encouragement of American Norm Uhlir and the dreams of Sydney’s Ken Moss and afew friends.
It All Started in New South Wales – Ken Moss
Ken Moss of Ryde, a suburb of Sydney was a Veteran Car Club member who rallied a 1908 Panhard Levassor that had been bought new by his grandfather. In 1959-60 Ken (known far and wide as Mossie) had restored a 1912 Cadillac in his back yard. Five years later he took an epic trip to the USA, taking his family and the 1912 Cadillac and driving it across America, forming a lot of friendships with members of the American Cadillac and LaSalle Club Inc (founded 1958). The Americans encouraged Ken to put a Cadillac club together in Australia, and already owning three Cadillacs and knowing many other Cadillac owners, he was just the man for the job.
Through the Veteran Car Club, Ken had made the acquaintances of two other 1912 Cadillac owners, Dave Fiechtner from Drayton in southern Queensland, and Henry Formby from Drouin, east of Melbourne. Dave and Henry were keen to help get such a club going, and each knew other local enthusiasts with various models of Cadillacs and LaSalles.
35 letters were sent out to known Cadillac owners in several states. A meeting was held in Sydney on 25 March 1970 at Carlingford NSW with 16 people attending. They voted to form a club; Ken Moss was elected President, Arthur Phillips Vice-President, David Hurt Secretary/Treasurer (briefly) and Austin Woodbury Events Director.
It was essentially a Sydney club in the early years, but people in all states could be members and a few interstaters always attended the Annual General Meetings held in a hall at Fivedock, a Sydney suburb, every July.
The Club’s first outing was a 22-mile run from Carlingford to the Australiana Village at Wilberforce in October with 12 Cadillacs and LaSalles in attendance.
The Club’s first magazine appeared soon afterward, edited by David Hurt. The magazine (not yet named “LaCad”) was produced in Sydney and was considered to be of a very high standard, complete with several pages of photos of members’ cars. Membership fee for the Club was set at $8 per year. In 1971 the editor of the US CLC’s Self Starter magazine, Agnes Uhlir suggested naming our new magazine “LaCad”, which was immediately adopted. By this time there were approximately 50 members.
Ken Moss was elected to six terms (the first 6 years) as national President. Then in 1976 the constitution was changed to allow Directors from states other than NSW to be elected, and gradually representation on the Club’s national Committee began to swing away from Sydney domination as Directors from Victoria and Qld stood and were elected.
In 1976 Bob Scanlan of Ermington NSW was elected as President - Bob’s involvement actually took in his whole household. His wife Jan was an equally keen contributor, doing typing, mailing, correspondence (remember, no email), treasurer, and an enormous input to the LaCad magazine. The Scanlan kitchen served the CLC as its office and production headquarters for several years.
The Club’s first Annual General Meeting to NOT be held in Sydney was in 1979 when it was held in Melbourne.
In 1991 the national Presidency and the national structure were about to be dismantled - Victoria incorporated in that year and the other states soon followed.
Incorporation
Since the late seventies there had been discussion about the need for the protection of members against litigation but the Club’s nationwide committee structure and differing state laws delayed incorporation for years. The executive wanted to retain the club’s nationwide structure, for any breakup was thought likely to lose the close camaraderie between states that characterised the club.
Eventually members realised that the national Club would have to separate into states to incorporate under the differing legislation of each state.
By 1991 Victoria had incorporated and New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia followed during 1992.
Victoria
The first meeting to be held in Victoria was in 1971 at the home of Irwin and Beverly Sinclair in Noble Park. The first outing was a run to Henry and Heather Formby’s farm property at Drouin in February 1972.
Beverly Sinclair typed every notice and countless stencils for the Gestetner spirit-copying machine, as well as being Events Director for years. She was the main organiser of the Club’s first National Meet (held at Wagga NSW) in 1989.
Irwin Sinclair was in charge in Victoria and was also national President from 1980 and served three terms.
New South Wales (after incorporation 1992)
Obviously much of the national Club’s fundamental history happened in New South Wales, the production of the national LaCad magazine, and the associated banking, accounts payable, magazine distribution, meetings, etc that accompanied it. NSW became a region after incorporation in 1992, so it was freed to look after its own responsibilities and development.
Lorraine Morris was an active woman motoring enthusiast who became the first President ofthe NSW Club when it incorporated in 1992. She had been NSW Secretary and a Vice President of the national Club in the eighties, and when she sadly died in 2001 the Club lost a dedicated and tireless volunteer, and one of the few women to hold office in the hobby at that time.
Queensland
Dave Fiechtner of Toowoomba, Queensland had been a founding member of the national Cadillac LaSalle Club in 1970, and had been the Regional Director of the Qld region from the beginning. Members were far-flung and no meeting was held until his successor Hank Eustace called a gathering in December 1978. This first meeting was held at Hank’s home in suburban Brisbane; Dave stood down in favour of Hank at this time.
Upon incorporation of the Queensland club in September 1992, Paul Halliday became President, Des Kiehne Vice President, Jeff Lawson Secretary and Val Sharp Treasurer. In January 1994 the Qld club visited founder Dave Fiechtner’s place near Toowoomba and presented him with Life Membership.
South Australia
The first SA gathering of Cadillac owners was held in November 1984 and a region of the national Club was formed there in December 1989. In Dec 1990 the South Australian region split over differences between two groups of members, and a breakaway Cadillac club was formed. The national Club decided to support the group led by Mark Chapman, but the new “breakaway” group had already registered the name “Cadillac LaSalle Club of South Australia” which it still uses today. The name had never been registered, so was available to anyone who wished to go through the formalities. Mark Chapman incorporated his group soon afterward as the “National Cadillac Club of South Australia”, and this group is the Club affiliated with the CLC nationally to this day.
Ian Robertson of South Australia started a newsletter called The Caddy early in 1999.
Ian became President in 1999, with Mark Chapman Vice President and Pat Heaven Secretary.
West Australia
The West Australian region of the CLC was formed in May 2005 as the “Cadillac LaSalle Club of Australia (WA Region) Inc. The first official club meeting was held in June 2005 with 12 eager people. Funds were needed so four founding members put $200 each on the table to get the ball rolling, Cadillac club members on the east coast were contacted and WAbecame part of the Cadillac LaSalle Clubs of Australia. First president was John Richardson.
Communication in a national club
Forty years ago there was no internet, no email, fax machines only became common in the later seventies, long distance phone calls were quite expensive, and people mostly communicated by letter. For those unfamilar with this method, it involves writing or typing some thoughts on to a sheet of paper, sealing the paper in an addressed envelope, attaching a stamp, and dropping the letter into a post box in the street. Australia Post made lots of money delivering such letters to and from any address in Australia.
Today it’s mostly lawyers and older people who do not have internet access who continue to communicate by this centuries-old method. But if you were a volunteer on the Committee of a national car club in the 1970s, you did not expect to be reimbursed for long distance phone calls except in urgent situations, so if you needed to ask or tell someone in another state something, youwrote them a letter.
The internet - CLC Website 1997
NSW member Allan Levinson created the Clubs' website in 1997 and soon
started receiving compliments from people around the world who appreciated the extensive gallery of Cadillac photos. This was pre digital photography, so members posted/mailed to him pictures to scan.
Control of the site later passed to NSW President Peter Waite but did not
attract the support it deserved.
Victorian Rob Watson is now the administrator of this new website.
LaCad
In March 1970 the fledgling Club’s David Hurt produced its first magazine, assisted by Austin Woodbury who worked at a major daily newspaper.
A succession of volunteers from there on gathered material, typed stencils, printed the required number of pages from the stencils, and assembled the pages into magazines for posting. For years this was done at the Scanlans’ kitchen table in Ermington.
It is worth noting that in addition to typing stencils and all correspondence and feeding and organising the LaCad committee, and collecting picture pages from printers, the Scanlan residence housed the national President, Secretary, and Membership Secretary. Bob & Jan Scanlan’s contribution to the Club during those five or so years could hardly be overestimated.
Production of LaCad moved to Melbourne in 1977 when Peter Ratcliff became editor, lasting until 1987 when Ted Hodder in Sydney took over with assistance from Lorraine Morris, Stuart Leal, Julie Waite and others.
To assist with mailing, Membership Secretary Greg Waller began producing name and address labels from the computerised membership list he had designed. The list may have been only a simple Excel spreadsheet, but in 1989 Greg was the first to venture into computerising this time consuming and repetitive task.
The editor role changed hands numerous times and to avoid volunteer burnout, outsourcing the magazine layout work was investigated. However Queensland members Terry and Robyn Griffin became the new Editors in 2003 and continued producing a top quality magazine for 13 years.
They were followed by our current editorial team of Andrew and Rachel Rees in 2017.
For further reading you should obtain a copy of "The First 40 Years - a history of the Cadillac LaSalle Clubs of Australia" 2012 by Peter Ratcliff. This heavily illustrated 100-page book is available FREE if you pay postage. Contact Peter on 0402 531 442 or email -peteratcliff@netspace.net.au