Algebra and petrol: the race that made Queensland fall in love with cars

While cars are now a regular part of our lives, at the beginning of the 20th century they were considered untrustworthy at best and dangerous at worst. A small group of Brisbane motoring enthusiasts wanted to change the minds of the public and devised an ingenious public spectacle to do it.  

Motoring in its earliest forms in Queensland was made mainstream by Dr George Hopkins, a leading Brisbane medical practitioner, who began using an Oldsmobile on his patient rounds. In 1905, Hopkins became the inaugural president of the Automobile Club of Queensland (ACQ). 

Ten of the 18 foundation ACQ members were medical practitioners, including surgeon Charles F. Marks (owner of the second ever Queensland number plate, now on show in our summer exhibition Driven: every car tells a story) and the extraordinary Dr Lilian Cooper, Queensland’s first registered female doctor and registered motorist. 

Long before the well-known countrywide Redex Reliability Trials of the 1950s, these early reliability trials were less a gruelling endurance test and more of a public relations exercise. The objective of the trials was not speed, but rather fuel economy ... and whether the car held together the whole way. 

Participants in the trials were members of automobile clubs, and were – apart from doctors – mostly representatives of automotive manufacturers, importers or related companies, whose incentive was to publicise how cars were dependable, safe and enjoyable. 

In 1920, the ACQ accepted an invitation from the Automobile Club of Australia to conduct an ‘interstate Reliability Touring Contest’ from Sydney to Brisbane, running from 19 to 22 October. 

Each competing car would be allotted an average speed to ‘race’ at, directly corresponding to its horsepower and had to carry ‘a full complement of passengers’, including an official race observer. 

Every competitor began with 700 points (500 for reliability, 100 for petrol consumption and 50 each for 2 hill climbs) with those points being deducted according to an official formula. Various prizes and a trophy were on offer, including a £50 grand prize. Importantly, every day across the four-day trial included an official lunch stop.

Thirty-two competitors left Sydney on Monday 18 October. Along the route from the Queensland border (covering Stanthorpe, Dalveen, Cherry Gully, Warwick and Spicer’s Gap), the ACQ placed direction signs to assist in navigation. 

All but 2 cars arrived in Albert Square (now King George Square) on Thursday 21 October, ‘travel stained ... but very fit’. The first to be welcomed by the ‘immense crowd’ was Boyd Edkins in his Vauxhall (Mr H.S. Simpson in his Templar was first into the city but collided with a horse towing a coal cart just before entering the square). 

All drivers were ‘unanimous in their opinion that the worst roads were encountered in Queensland.’ A particular section at Spicer’s Gap, it was reported, ‘was like climbing up the side of a wall’. 

The £50 first prize was won by Mr. P.A. McIntosh, of Sydney, in his Buick.

For the benefit of Mrs Pike 

The date for the 1921 test was set for 23 to 27 August. This time, 27 cars (10 from Queensland) would travel from Brisbane to Sydney, with two hill climbs through the Toowoomba Range and Cherry Hill near Mudgee.  

The competitors left Roma Street in 2-minute intervals from 8:00 am. Among them was car number 13, ‘the fatal number ... allotted to a mysterious gentleman known as W. Fearless, of New South Wales’, and newly-married Queensland couple Mr and Mrs Pike. 

Once again drivers expressed pleasure at crossing into New South Wales, describing portions of Queensland roads as ‘a succession of ruts, boulders, and deep cross-channels filled with muddy water’. Indeed, halfway between Dalveen and Cottonvale, nearly every car fell into a bog and had to be hauled out.  

It was 50 yards past one of these channels that Mr Pike “found he had left his fuel tank behind”. Remarkably, he simply retrieved the tank, strapped it to his running board and – with the help of a measure or rubber tube – arrived that night at the trial’s Armidale stop along with the other drivers. He had saved the race (and perhaps his new marriage). 

Twenty-six of the 27 starters arrived in Sydney on Friday 27 August (Mr V.W. Croston – who lost a wheel outside of Mudgee – arrived on Sunday 28 August). Boyd Edkins and his Vauxhall took out the grand prize. 

External combustion 

The 1922 trial – beginning in Sydney on Monday 18 September – began with a literal bang. As a part of preparations, it was necessary to empty the petrol tanks of all 25 cars to allow them to be filled with the same type and amount of fuel. The best method for this – for reasons only known to history – was to let the emptied petrol flow over the road.  

Despite calls not to smoke or strike matches, the assembled crowd continued to do both, ‘puff[ing] away serenely at cigarettes, while they poked away among car mechanisms.’ Unsurprisingly, there was suddenly a burst of flame as petrol fumes met a lit cigarette, and ‘the inflammable liquid was soon blazing for yards along the gutter’.  

It was estimated 50 cars in total had gathered on Phillip Street in Sydney’s CBD to witness the trial’s opening, most now with flames lapping at their wheels. Somehow, all the trial entrants made it away safely and the blaze was beaten out. 

The Queenslander 

Despite being one of only 4 Queenslanders, newcomer A.J. Soden came third overall in the 1921 trial, winning both hill climbs and the petrol consumption contest. He was also awarded the Arnott Cup, for the highest place Queenslander in the trial. The trophy – provided by Percy Arnott of Arnott’s biscuits – remains in State Library of Queensland’s collections. 

Remarkably, Soden had only begun driving a little over a year prior, purchasing his 10 horsepower Fiat in December 1921. A few months later, he won the RACQ’s reliability Trial and petrol consumption contest.  

More remarkable still was the fact that Soden made his money as a commercial artist – a true amateur, not affiliated with any part of the automotive industry. 

State Library holds in its collections several of Soden’s trophies plus a plaque commemorating his 12 wins in RACQ contests between 1922 and 1924. The plaque – on display as part of State Library's free summer exhibition Driven: every car has a story – also contains badges including a gold medal awarded by the Fiat company in acknowledgement of his achievements. 

Fearless, Willnott and the Perambulator

Rumours of the trial’s demise were, however, greatly exaggerated. A whopping 52 entries were received for the 1923 trial, including 25 Queenslanders (and – one assumes – a slightly sheepish Edkins). Accompanying the participants from 17 to 21 September would be 5 official cars, taking the total participation to 230 people.  

This increase was perhaps in no small part due to the extraordinary growth of automobile ownership in Queensland. On the eve of the 1923 trial, Main Roads Board member D.A. Crawford told a Motor Traders’ Association of Queensland dinner that during the year, an average of 450 new cars every month had been introduced to Queensland. 

New rules included weight handicaps for more powerful cars, a ban on ‘coasting’, and only measuring petrol consumption on the first day (‘after which competitors may waste as much petrol as they choose’). For the first time also were 2 female drivers: Mrs. J.A. Jones, accompanied by her son and daughter on the journey; and Miss G.E. McLeod of Brisbane, whose observer and 2 passengers were also women. 

At 7:00 am 17 September, the competitors left from the Woolloongabba railway yards, led by Mr. R.N. Wallis’s tiny Baby Austin, nicknamed 'The Perambulator' by his fellow NSW motorists, due to its apparent similarity to a child’s pram. Two entrants not present were the indefatigable ‘A. Fearsome’ and a new (non-) contender, ‘H.E. Willnott’. 

The winner of the 1923 test was for the first time a Queenslander: Mr. E.W. Greenham in his Fiat. Miss McLeod came 25th out of 47 finishers, with Mrs Jones 29th. The Perambulator unfortunately did not make it far past the New South Wales border. 

The journey continues 

With Queensland’s automotive industry booming, and roads improving, the decision was made in 1924 to abandon the interstate Reliability Trials. They had well and truly served their purpose. Automobiles were no longer something to be feared or mistrusted by Queenslanders; they were being wholeheartedly embraced. 

By this time, the RACQ’s membership was soaring; so much so that the next year it would begin its earliest form of roadside assistance – 2 mechanics who searched the roads around Brisbane on Sundays and public holidays for stranded motorists. 

Resources

• Boyd Robert Edkins, Australian Dictionary of Biography website, accessed 9 December 2025
• Invincible Newsreel, from Paul Ruckert collection 31306/36, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
• New acquisition - List of Motor Owners in Queensland, State Library of Queensland website, accessed 9 December 2025
• Our History, RACQ website, accessed 9 December 2025
• The Royal Automobile Club of Queensland, 1905-1985 : our first 80 years / (compiled by V.D. Mathieson), 1985, <Brisbane>: RACQ, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
• Trove website (various pages), National Library of Australia, accessed 9 December 2025