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Show & Tell at Applecross Primary School
by Jack Del Borello
Back in September I was contacted
by the deputy headmaster at the
Applecross Primary School who was
seeking information about a race car
known as the "White Mouse". Reason
being, a group of elite kids at the
school were working on a project
about the History of Applecross and
in their research came across a motor
race that ran through the streets of
their suburb. It was the first and only
time we had a motor race in the
streets of Perth and it attracted over
20,000 spectators. The event known as
the "Patriotic Grand Prix", which ran
in 1940, was to raise funds for the War effort.
I was honoured to be asked to talk
about the car and it's history, so after a
couple of phone calls we arranged a
date to take the car down to them. I
set the car up in the gardens of the
historic school and a group of very
well behaved kids sat around intently
listening to my talk. Afterwards there
were loads of great questions from
students who were pretty excited
when I started the car up. We
discussed things like what an
"Australian Special" was and how
these cars were made from what ever people had lying around in their backyards.
At the end of the talk, I had 8-10 year olds asking intelligent questions about the design of
the body to what engine it has and then thanking me for showing them the car. Later I was
told by the deputy headmaster that
the students were studying the shape,
design and detail of the White Mouse
because their next project was to
create a scale model of the car using a
newly acquired 3D Printer.
I would've loved that as a kid! I was
so impressed to see the enthusiasm
shown by the students and happy to
see that old cars do still interest our
youth. Hopefully I planted a couple of
seeds for them to take our motoring
history well into the future.