A replica of the first car to drive around Australia braced the streets of Warburton on Sunday 16 November as it marked its 100th anniversary.
The 1923 Citroen 5CV, known as Bubsie, stopped by the ADRA Community Care Centre Warburton where community stalls, live music and a radio broadcast roadshow took place.
Faith FM presenter and Warburton Seventh-day Adventist Church minister Peter Watts said the people of Warburton stopped in their tracks as the iconic car came down the street.
“We drove in Bubsie out of the ADRA Community Centre, through town, honking the horn and we got lots of waves from people as we went by.
“People were stopped in their tracks and watching it, pulling out their phones to take videos and photographs of Bubsie as it came in.
“It was a wonderful entrance for the car and it was the main attraction of the event,” Mr Watts said.
Bubsie’s arrival in Warburton is a part of a larger journey which celebrates the 100th anniversary of its original trip around Australia in 1925.
In 1925, a 22-year-old man named Nevill Westwood went on a missionary trip and drove his 1923 Citroen 5CV around the entire coast of Australia.
A missionary of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Mr Westwood’s connection with Warburton is a unique one, and his story was told on Mr Watts’s show on the day.
“Myself and John Weeks, we regularly host a live show called A Light in the Dark that’s in a studio in Melbourne each Thursday, but this was the first time we’d done a road show out on location together.
“It was great, we talked a little bit about the story of Neville Westwood on his journey and what motivated him to go.”
The event itself had plenty on offer, with a strongman competition, a performance from the Youth Advent Brass Band, an Adcare Op Shop stall with second-hand goods, a craft stall and food from the ADRA Food Trailer.
Flyers were distributed prior to the event with locals taking notice as Busbie pulled into town.
“There were certainly two or three of the shops where people were waving, and they must have recognised that this was the car that they’d heard about coming to town.”
Staying true to the original journey, Bubsie mirrored the path the original would have taken as it entered into Warburton.
“When Bubsy came 100 years ago, it came over Acheron Way. So it would have gone westward through the town as it went on its journey, so we did the journey that way and then we came back as well,” Mr Watts said.
Busbie began its trip from Perth in June this year, stopping off at Port Headland, Brisbane, New South Wales and now in Victoria.
Since Sunday, Bubsie has continued its journey, briefly pausing in Wandin before making its way to Melbourne, and eventually crossing the Nullarbor Plain.
Mr Watts said it was a day to celebrate a great story that has some local ties to the area.
“It’s a great story of one man’s determination to battle on, and this event is really commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first car to go right around Australia.”
“He would go to these remote communities… he would have Christian books that he would share, and the books that he shared were printed here in Warburton at the Signs Publishing Company.”
“Warburton was one of the places that he stopped on his way around Australia and he went to the publishing house, he also went to the Sanitarium health food factory when that was open here as well,” said Mr Watts.
What Mr Westwood did is an incredible feat by today’s standards – but Mr Watts said one must consider how significant it was back in 1925.
“There are no roads at this point in time. There’s only one car for every 60 people in Australia. There were no service stations, virtually no mechanical parts available.
“The car did break down a number of times on the way round, and they had to fix it up and patch it up and back on the road it went.”
