north east regional extra | September 2 - 8, 2020
nemedia.com.au
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September 2-8, 2020
By BELINDA HARRISON
◆ GREASED LIGHTNING: After more than 50 years at a single place of employment, Adrian Kiker isn’t looking to retire yet. PHOTO: Kieren Tilly
THE year was 1974, and while history was being made around the world with the first surviving sextuplets born in Cape Town, the final episode of The Brady Bunch airing in America and ABBA winning the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Waterloo’, three young lads from Wangaratta were preparing to take part in a competition. Adrian Kiker began his motor mechanic apprenticeship at Carmody Motors in February 1966 following schooling at St Patrick’s and Our Lady’s, with a four-year stint at Champagnat College before finding his way to the Greta Road Technical School, which was where all young men went if their intention was to go into a trade. While Adrian completed his apprenticeship, Carmody Motors became Pat Heffernan Motors (later Heffernan & Rees and now Ovens Ford) and in 1974, Adrian, along with workmates Les Brown and Neville McPherson, learned of a competition to be held in Albury that August. A keen ‘rep’ who often visited Pat Heffernan Motors and sold them parts was involved in running the Trade Fair and Motor Exhibition and told Adrian, Les and Neville that they should make up a team and have a go. But what was the competition? What would they have to do? The rep explained the competition and the three Wangaratta boys got down to the business of ‘giving it a go’. “Basically we had to reassemble a motor as fast as we could, and it had to run,” Adrian explained. “But there was a lot involved in that; the motor had to be completely dismantled, all valves and springs had to come out of the head manifolds, off the fuel pump and carburettor, pistons had to be out of blocks as well as the rings, bearings and crankshaft.
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They don’t make ‘em like they used to
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