EAW Special!
"The EAW Special racing car is a light, compact, one-off, hand-built, Australian racing car with a motorcycle engine. It was designed and built by Ernest Arthur Watson, better known as Wilbur Watson, and its name is derived from his initials. Construction was undertaken in small rented garages in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney between 1949 and 1957. It is an excellent example of racing cars designed and made in Australia in the immediate post-war period, a time when almost anyone who was mechanically minded and had an ordinary set of tools could produce and race a home-made racing car.
During the war, Wilbur Watson was a flight engineer on Catalina flying boats based at Rathmines. He later became a self-taught automotive engineer and worked in collaboration with future racing car greats Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac in the construction of their early 500 cc Specials. Wilbur was determined to build his own 500 cc racing car but , having little money to spend on it , he sourced the pieces from wreckers' yards and war surplus suppliers. The racing car was constructed from a variety of adapted components from an assortment of vehicles including automobiles, motorcycles, aircraft, bicycles and even a soup tin. In 1958 the motoring journalist Pedr Davis referred to Wilbur's EAW Special as 'one of the most attractively built and ingeniously thought out vehicles competing in Australia'. Despite its eclectic construction. the EAW Special won numerous trophies for hill climbs at Silverdale, NSW, and other sprint events throughout the late 1950s and early 60s. Watson presented these trophies to the Museum along with the car in 1983.
In the 1950s, when new cars were too expensive and used cars too slow and unreliable, building homemade road and racing cars was a popular pastime in Australia. The availability of fibreglass bodies made these cars look professional. Motor racing circuits opened at Warwick Farm racecourse in Sydney in 1960 and at Sandown Park racecourse near Melbourne in 1962 providing road racing facilities where spectators could see the whole circuit and public roads did not need to be closed."
