‘Bubsie’

Imagine a world without highways, bridges, or even road signs. No GPS, no mobile phone, no internet. Just a tattered map, a trusty car, and Australia’s vast, untamed landscape. In 1925, two ordinary men, Nevill Westwood and Greg Davies, dared to dream of driving a car right around this incredible continent. Their Citroën 5CV, ‘Bubsie,’ became their companion on this epic adventure, battling scorching heat, mechanical breakdowns, and the sheer isolation of the outback.

This year to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their remarkable achievement, ‘The Incredible Journey’, a 9GEM production, will be re-enacting the incredible journey undertaken 100 years before by young Nevill Westwood, who accidentally achieved the record of being the first person to drive right around Australia. A team of enthusiasts will be retracing the steps of Nevill Westwood and ‘Bubsie’ in a similar Citroën 5CV, reliving their adventure, telling their story, and celebrating the courage it took to conquer a continent and the enduring human spirit that makes dreams a reality.

In an era before reliable maps of the largely unexplored outback, Westwood and Davies relied on their wits, local knowledge, and the welcome and help from the many people they met along the way. Every mile covered was a victory against the elements, every breakdown a test of resourcefulness.

This new venture will start on the 22 June from Bickley in Perth and will retrace the same original route. The restored ‘Bubsie’ car will be trailered between towns, and then driven to the events. To date ‘Bubsie’ has more than 300 venues appearances booked all around the country; car clubs, schools, church groups, Rotary and Probus groups are all eager to be thrilled by the car’s appearance.

In the south west we were treated to a preliminary showing; hearing the tale and being shown the restored vehicle. It had taken around four solid months of restoration work to bring a new ‘Bubsie’ to life, and it is a picture.

The original ‘Bubsie’ can be seen in the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

Bickley to Darwin was the plan.

Adventure is often only a decision away. Perhaps Nevill Westwood understood this.

During Nevill’s first foray into the outback, he rode his push bike more than 1600 kilometres, selling books from town to town. He earned enough money selling books to exchange his pushbike for a motorbike, which would help him cover more ground.

Nevill’s accounts of his travels reveal that he was a man who liked machines. He was also a man who liked to live by the seat of his pants while plunging headfirst into adventure. He rode his motorbike from Perth up the west coast to Port Hedland, only to discover that he had worn out the pistons on his motorbike’s engine by using unsuitable lubricant oil. But Nevill was too intrepid to turn back, the bike stopped finally somewhere north-west of Meekatharra and a long way from anywhere. With no township or pastoral station in sight, Nevill abandoned the bike to the elements and walked about 100 kilometres west to the coast, ending up near Carnarvon.

When he got back to Perth, Nevill began planning his next trip into the outback.

Nevill needed wheels and he decided that four were preferable to two. He found a second-hand 1923 Citroen, which already had 48,000 kilometres on the odometer but was in reasonable condition.

He named the car, a baby Citroen, ‘Bubsie’, it was reddish-brown. The car could work up to a top speed of 50 kilometres per hour and had enough ground clearance to ensure it would not get stuck in difficult terrain.

Finally in possession of a vehicle worthy of his adventuring endeavours, Nevill prepared to launch out again, but this time, he decided to take a friend. He persuaded Greg Davies, who was a fellow missionary, to join him, and the two planned to travel up through Western Australia and into the Northern Territory as far as Darwin before making their way home. That was the plan; Bickley to Darwin.

It was a sound plan but one that would eventually be discarded in favour of a far more exciting one.

On reaching Darwin and being somewhat revived, Nevill had decided to go beyond his initial plan of driving only as far Darwin and set his sights on driving right around Australia. He figured the road and therefore the drive would be a better one once they reach Camoowel on the Queensland boarder.

‘Bubsie’ was only serviced twice on the trip, it was checked in to the Citroen dealers in Brisbane and then in Melbourne to be given a service. On reaching Albury on the New South Wales border Greg was offered a job doing nurse training. Nevill, then hearing there was another adventurer ‘having a crack at going around’, drove almost nonstop across the Nullarbor, spending Christmas Day there and completing his journey on the 30th December in Perth being the first person to drive a car around Australia.

The toughest and most testing part of the journey was from Katherine to Darwin. Overall, they went through four sets of tyres, all the tyre repairs kit they purchased and seemly countless numbers of tubes. Stripped gears in the gear box were repaired by a black smith in Darwin; the first hardening of the gears was not successful, the car was taken back, the second repairs were good. That same gearbox made it all the way back to Perth. Fuel, or running out of fuel was also a source of concern with no conveniently positioned service stations on route they had to rely on the kindness of station owners when their supplies had run out.