Hetrel, George

Written by MotorMarques Team

George Hetrel was bitten by the car bug since before he can even remember. It was not until 1984 that he bought his first old car, a 1914 Fiat. After considerable restoration, it was entered in the Bicentennial rally of 1988. This was an international rally with 1100 cars converging on Canberra from all States of Australia. A concourse was part of the rally and Fiat was the outright winner.

At the time he was somewhat at a loss to understand why people had more than one old car, failing to see how they could justify such self-indulgence.
But once he was involved, it was not long before car number two came along, and then number three, and so on. He now has an entire museum in a charming rural spot called the Basin, a few kilometres off the Mountain Highway, Olinda, Victoria. Georges museum contains so many exhibits to see that it was impossible to include them all on the one page. There is the 1903 T56 Peugeot of which only 16 examples were ever made, several motorcycles, pre-war Riley and Bentley, a 1914 Fiat, a 19th century Daimler Benz, a Unic, a pre-WWI Oldsmobile, a 1924 Vauxhall 30/98, are very valuable 1936 Mercedes-Benz 540K Compressor and the 1927 Type 35C Bugatti.
He has only ever competed in the 1927 Type 35 C. Bugatti, which is one of the best-known historic cars on the east coast of the continent. He had waited for quite a few years before acquiring it in 1997, the car having come to Australia in about 1960. George is the only person to enter it in competition, and he does not spare it at all. "You get it on the circuit and it really wants to go. It's a delight to drive."
It is a local engineer who keeps the Bugatti in top condition, and some of the unusual demands made by the 1950cc supercharged engine include a broken bracket holding the magneto at the end of the camshaft. The bracket came adrift, the magneto thrashed about and caused serious damage, which required a high degree of technical excellence to repair. Even more serious damage was done during an incident at Phillip Island in 2005. At turn 6 a rear wheel suddenly detached itself whilst George was travelling at around 60 mph, pushing the big engine up to 5000 RPM. When asked what the sensation was like when the accident happened, George thought a moment and concluded, "it seemed very final."

Once again, a high level of engineering skill was required to get the car back to competition condition. Normally the Bugatti competes in J division (prior to 1930), but often as not it's entered in K (1931-1940) and L (1941-1960). It is a "very very fast car", capable of 135 mph, with the engine revving at 5000 rpm. It has no fan, and as long as you're not delayed unduly at the start it's okay. If the delay looks like being a long one, George switches off the engine, and cranks it up again when it's time to start. Even recent 40 degree heat did not cause it any problem.
The car has one or two eccentricities. It has an external hand operated oil pressure pump which is located on the "near" side of the body. The fuel tank pressure pump is located on the dash. (With only 20 to 30 km to be covered in each race, the fuel tank is always virtually empty) Because the pedals are very close together, specially made racing shoes are needed. Recently a self-starter was suggested, and even planned, but when the time actually came to make the modifications, George reneged, because he felt it detracted too much from the car's originality.