Historic journey along Overland Telegraph Line captures the imagination

Friends recreate historic journey from Adelaide to Darwin in 1925 Studebaker cars Mon 1 Jun 2026 at 5:24pm If you saw a car in the central Australian outback you wouldn't expect it to be a vintage 1925 Studebaker … let alone two of them, driven by two men called Brenton. Back in the day, the century-old cars were known for their durability and size, according to Brenton Taylor who has been driving one of the Studebakers alongside his friend Brenton Whittenbury in the other. "The Studebakers were chosen because they could seat seven people," he said. "They've got very large motors, ours are 290 cubic inch or 4.8 litres, so big, torquey, heavy cars, quite luxurious. "They cost about three times as much as a Model T Ford back in the day and they were often chosen by entrepreneurs to start their businesses in the outback, like Captain Bagot was doing." The old friends are driving the cars from Adelaide to Darwin and back, along the route of the old Overland Telegraph Line, recreating the journey of Captain Edward Bagot 100 years ago. The original convoy comprised two Studebaker cars and two trucks, a Thornycroft and a Graham, but on their journey Mr Taylor and Mr Whittenbury have been accompanied by five support vehicles. Mr Taylor said Captain Bagot completed the journey to open up the outback for tourism and paying passengers. "His main reason was to provide a tourist product, if you like, that people would pay good money for," he said. "He had 12 passengers that paid 100 pounds each, which is about $8,010 today." One of those passengers was Mr Whittenbury's great grandfather Clarence Judd. Mr Judd was an amateur filmmaker from South Australia, who documented the journey. "I had seen the movie as a child, but it had only ever really remained in the family, you know, it wasn't for general release," said Mr Whittenbury. "It just captured my imagination in those early days and I've been thinking about making this trip for a long time. "Then about three years ago, Brenton and I were talking and we thought, 'well, why don't we do it'? And here we are today." The friends left Adelaide on May 18, exactly 100 years after Captain Bagot, and expect to arrive in Darwin on June 6. Along the way Mr Taylor and Mr Whittenbury are raising funds for the Royal Flying Doctors Service. How well do the vintage cars handle the outback terrain? About a quarter through their journey, in Alice Springs, Mr Whittenbury said the Studebakers had handled everything the pair had thrown at them. "We've managed to get through fairly much unscathed at the moment," he said. "We had one minor incident with one of the cars coming in to Beltana that broke a blade off the radiator fan, but we were able to get that fixed in Copley, so we were back underway pretty quickly after that. "The same thing happened 100 years ago, in all the reports that we've read that Captain Bagot wrote, they had a fairly trouble-free trip, they broke a spring, they had a flat tyre, but that was really about it." Mr Taylor said the Studebakers had been handling the sand and rough terrain admirably. "Mainly our four-wheel drive support vehicles are the ones who have been getting bogged in the last couple of days," he said. "And when (the Studebakers) do get bogged, because they don't have the power of a modern vehicle, we're using the sand mat technique that we read about in a book called 'Telegraph Tourists of 1929'. "We've been using these sand mats, 15 metres long and about a half a metre wide each, roll them out, tuck them under the wheels, slowly crawl up, get onto them and then go as fast as you can along them. "It's been amazing, they really do work." Once the convoy reaches Darwin, it will return across the Barkly Tableland to Camooweal, then south down the Birdsville Track, following as best as possible in the tracks of Captain Bagot.