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Jeff Kesby - My First Car

1975 L57 1400 4WD Wagon

Jeff and His First Love - Girlfriend Nowhere To Be Seen !

Way back in 1975, I was just a boy, that hadn't discovered girls and was content spending weekends exploring the mountain areas of mid north NSW on a Honda Trail bike. Things took a sudden change when I started a new job as a cadet photographer with the local newspaper, and at the same time found a girlfriend. The result of these happenings, the bike wasn't much good for carrying the camera gear, and also wasn't real comfortable at the Port Macquarie drive-in.

The bike had to go and the logical replacement was a 4WD, but what (remember this is 1975)? F10 Daihatsus and LJ50 Suzukis were out, too small under-powered and rough riding. 40 Series Cruisers were not economical enough and the mighty Hi Lux 4WD was not yet born.

I had just about given up on the 4WD idea and was seriously considering a Corolla wagon, when a new local doctor arrived in town with a very new ugly looking small 4WD wagon. This seemed the answer to my dreams and I quickly developed an illness so I could go to the doctor and find out about this car. Doctor explained his short time with this car had been enjoyable and that it was built by a company in Japan that build trains, buses, planes and a host of other things. That was enough for me.

I established that there was a dealer for this car at Taree about 2 hours from Kempsey, so the following Saturday I was on the dealers door step at opening time. By 10.30am that day I had driven a dark green L57 1400 demo model with 500kms on the clock and was impressed enough to sign the dotted line, purchase price $4,300. This included rego, bull bar and sump guard. I could have had genuine air conditioning fitted for an extra $357, but I didn't want to stretch the budget too far.

Within a week I had joined the Kempsey District 4WD Club. I did many trips with the club and surprised many knockers of this "Funny Pretend 4WD". Onlookers were always amazed at how in the rough stuff the Subaru would lift its rear legs and hence the car was christened "Pluto" by club members and come Christmas I was presented with a stuffed dog to sit on the dash.

Pluto was a faithful companion and I remained faithful to Pluto till early 1980 when the shapely lines and the brute 1600 power of the MY80 proved to much to resist. Pluto the car was traded at Thoroughgood Motors Kempsey who had recently taken on the franchise, and was sold to a professional fisherman who lived at Hat Head. The first girlfriend, well she left me for a bloke with a Ford V8 powered 40 Series Cruiser.

Jeff Kesby SC373