epilot Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 hi,i've shared these photos with the early guys some years ago but think you'll get a kick out of them.my 1973 2.4 E was delivered new to HK, went via Norfolk Island to NZ then to Oz about 10 years ago.this is part of the story as it appeared in ESSES the magazine of the EarlyS Registry in the states.the internet is a great thing !i was asked about the history of my 2.4E recently and whilst i purchased it out of NZ 10 years ago and knew that it was originally delivered to HK i had paid scant regard to the paperwork that came with the car.so i decided to pull out all the stuff i had and have a good look.what the certificate of registration in NZ shows that i didnt know is that the car was imported to NZ from Norfolk Island ! on the back of this document is the original NZ owners name, William Walter Hallett, so i said to my self, self, there cant be too many William Walter Hallett's in NZ, and sure enough there was only one !NZ White Pages and contact details for WWH in Masterton NZ.what the hell, i'll call, and left the crazy person message- did you own a 911 on Norfolk Island, if yes can you give me a call, if no, please excuse me ...9pm that night the phone rings- it's Bill (William), yes it was his car, chat, chat, he was digging around in some paperwork and found the original maintenance record books for the car, would i like them !!today in the mail, true to his word Bill sends me the maintenance record which also details the original owner in HK- and what i think is a classic photo of the car being 'delivered' to Norfolk Island in 1982. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgy Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 That is an awesome story and photos! Thank you for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niko Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 Are you sure Alby Mangles wasn't the previous owner That looks like him skulking around in the top photoSeriously though, great story and photos are sensational.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GUT Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 That's fantastic. Great story. Love the photos. How are the guards? A little compressed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diamond911 Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 Awesome story and photos. I bet that made your day/week/year finding the full history to your car! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airhead Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 Yeah. But how did they get it out of the little boat? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tips Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 Yeah. But how did they get it out of the little boat?it's a great story. I lived on Norfolk as a youngster just prior to your car arriving. For a small island of 5x3 miles it had 100 mile of road. I think at that time there were about 1500 locals and a few hundred mainlanders from NZ and AU. Interesting that there were quite a few performance cars on the island as it was tax & duty free so most of the mainlanders that were there on work contracts with the banks etc would order a car and store it (and try and stop it rusting) for the 12 months prior to heading home and take a new car home for a quite small sum. The good thing was that most of the vehicles were ordered direct from Japan or Europe and not Australian dealers so a number of models arrived that were not normally available here. There were even 2 or 3 GTR XU1's, Monaros etc direct out of Sydney but no tax or duty. The old lady that ran the local jewellery store even had a bloody great big Cadillac. My dad was the resident Qantas Guy manging the airport in the late 60's early 70's. The roads were narrow and as its pretty much one great big mountain, an extinct vulccano, they would have been brilliant in a Porsche.Everything came to the island via boat or plane. The airstrip could only handle DC3 &4 props so they didn't have cargo areas for cars, so they came by water. Because of the reefs they couldn't get the boats to the wharf so they would sit about a mile off shore. They would unload the cars from the cargo boat off shore onto the old whale boats you see in the photo which were towed by a tender back and forth for about two days to unload the ship. Larger cars and trucks were much harder to unload than the 911. For these cars they would lash two of the whale boats together and the car would be loaded straddling the two boats. Other cargo was just in rope nets. In the photo you can see the car being lifted off the whale boat onto the wharf. The crane was actually just a simple boom and pulley system and it was just tied to an old S1 land rover which would drive up and down the wharf all day lifting the cargo. Looks like by this time they had the big yellow crane which was used mainly for construction and the car unloading. You can just imagine how many of the little boats they needed to get that sucker on to the island. I think they also had a big flat barge by that time for the buses etc.Boats would come every 6-8 weeks and it was pretty much the weekend entertainment for us kids to watch the bout unload on a rough day to see if any fell in the ocean, and a few sure did. Thanks for posting those photos which bring back plenty of memories as Island life was a great way to grow up as a kid and in many ways wish my daughter had been able to have the same experience when she was young. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YellowDieselGolf Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 I wish I could "like" this thread twice. Great story and photos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandy468 Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 Geez this car has a story to tell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomo Posted 20May, 2016 Report Share Posted 20May, 2016 Great story thanks for shareing the adventure, like something out of a Bacall and Bogart movie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epilot Posted 23May, 2016 Author Report Share Posted 23May, 2016 couple more photos to answer some of the questions.as Tips said all the big stuff comes by ship, off loaded in to the whale boats, then off to the jetty or vice versa.Gut,looking closely at the photos of the car you can see how rough it was at the time and yet the car was only 9 years old by the time it left Norfolk, it must have led a very tough life on the island. When i bought the car out of NZ it was very tired and was treated to an engine re-build very quickly on arrival here and then a body resto a couple of years later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coastr Posted 23May, 2016 Report Share Posted 23May, 2016 I doubt any of us now could stand to watch our car being delivered like that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niko Posted 23May, 2016 Report Share Posted 23May, 2016 couple more photos to answer some of the questions.as Tips said all the big stuff comes by ship, off loaded in to the whale boats, then off to the jetty or vice versa.Gut,looking closely at the photos of the car you can see how rough it was at the time and yet the car was only 9 years old by the time it left Norfolk, it must have led a very tough life on the island. When i bought the car out of NZ it was very tired and was treated to an engine re-build very quickly on arrival here and then a body resto a couple of years later.Unreal..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiller Posted 23May, 2016 Report Share Posted 23May, 2016 those photos are amazing. Cars in wooden whale boats in this era...who would have thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poli84 Posted 23May, 2016 Report Share Posted 23May, 2016 What an incredible story and history on the car as well as on Norfolk cargo delivery in general. Incredible photos to have.That dump truck being delivered is next level sketchy, I thought cargo transportation in China was bad! Super cool though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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