MG Car Club of South Australia
T
VALE- PETER ROY IVEY
he MG Car Club of SA assembled en masse at Lobethal on Friday October 27, to support a huge gathering of Peter Ivey’ s family and friends, in farewelling one of the Club’ s genuine characters. We lost a foundation member on October 16 at the age of 83 years young – in fact Peter was listed as member # 31, having attended that inaugural meeting to form the MGCC SA back in 1956 at Motors Limited in Brown St( now named Morphett Street). A youthful Peter developed a strong love for horses, especially jumps races( think Oakbank) and even trained the family cat to jump over hurdles!. He was part owner of a trotter and could often be found at Victoria Park racecourse, hanging around the stables. A fitter & turner by trade, in his late twenties he switched from four legs to four wheels, developing a love for MG cars, and over the years would have five MGTDs to his credit. Not all at once! Being a very handy craftsman, he could build most parts himself including steering wheels, and constructed some Bacchus sports cars, amongst other automotive wizardry. The farm-lad in this man shone through when he succeeded in mastering hand milking of cows along with crafting country killed meat. Always a hills dweller, Peter and young wife Elaine alternated between Mt Pleasant and Birdwood( where he started a family supermarket – Triple 7), and was well known in the Lobethal district, being part of the Lobethal Car Race Carnival( along with Elaine who also drove the MG) a few years ago.
From David McNabb
10
P eter died on 16th October at the age of 83. I met him 60 years ago when he was one of our founding members. Peter had many passionate interests: Elaine and his family, MG’ s, hourse racing and foorball were predominant. He was our third Social secretary and the ideal person for this position— always being sociable, cheerful, energetic and full of ideas. He maintained a very positive attitude which lasted throughout his life. One of his ideas was“ The Ivey” or“ The Ivey Fuel Consumption Test.” This was a well regulated pub crawl through the streets of Adelaide a couple of weeks before Christmas. It became a tradition and lasted through the 60s 70s and 80s until we were all too old for such wild events. They were unique events and memorable. Ask any member who went on one. When he left school Peter was apprenticed as a fitter and turner. While still a young man he built about a dozen sports cars with fibreglass bodies and usually Holden motors. They were named Bacchus and were quite successful. One of these cars had a Peugeot engine and we believe stills holds the lap record for its class at Phillip Island. Peter and his mate Rex Treloar became motor wreckers running Klemzig Auto Wreckers. After a second wrecking yard, North East Auto Wreckers, they set up and ran Trelive Motors selling secondhand cars. Peter and Elaine then decided to buy a dairy farm. I don’ t know what experience they had in this area but they both had that positive attitude and ran it scientifically and successfully. Next was a chicken farm at gawler and the same could be said of this venture.