Description
Author: Bruce Lindsay, ISBN: 9780646581422, soft cover reprint 2014, 240 pages
This book also includes the Chamberlain Australian Innovator DVD - 1953 promotional film put to the test and images from chamberlain sales material 1949 - 1974.
Bob Chamberlain was the consummate engineer. Never considering his lack of tertiary training to be an impediment, he was one of those "seat of the pants" engineers in whom innate ability, combined with supreme self-belief, produced some astounding results.
Over his 84 years, he energetically pursued lines of enquiry, driven by a lively mind given to lateral thinking. While he was never shy of publicity, much of his incredible output remains unknown, even though his higher-profile activities like the Chamberlain tractor project are reasonably well documented.
Suggesting the high regard in which he was held by his friends and fellows, the production of his life's story was urged by former employee John Cummins, who was anxious that details of Bob's quite remarkable contributions to the Australian motor components industry be remembered.
Certainly in the process of preparing this history it has become apparent that he has never been accorded due credit for many of his works, and in some instances others have claimed accolades which are rightfully his.
From surviving documents this account sets the record straight.
About the Author:
Bruce Lindsay was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1946, within days of the commencement of the Chamberlains' tractor manufacturing venture. He was fascinated by all things mechanical before he could properly pronounce their names. While his English tutor was complimentary about his writing abilities, he was astonished when Eddie Ford paid him good money for his first contribution to Restored Cars magazine. He has since been a frequent contributor to periodicals in the fields of travel, history, music, photography and architecture as well as motoring.
He has never suffered the constraints of training in journalism...
Although he never knew Bob Chamberlain, Lindsay was studying at Melbourne University and driving his vintage Fiat when Chamberlain was restoring his historic cars, and regrets that their paths never crossed. Induced by his writing mentor, Ian Fraser, over too many glasses of single malt to write this life-story of a remarkable Australian, he lives surrounded by mechanical ephemera in the Adelaide Hills.
