My 1905 Cadillac

Car enthusiast Ron Poyser has long admired the elegant early Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles built at the turn of the 20th century, but for many years he struggled to find one he liked enough to buy. “This day and age, there are some proficient restorers out there who can do magic with old cars,” Ron says. “And they can really build them up, and make them look quite impressive, but the problem is they have very little left of the original old car in them.

“I found there wasn't much originality out there.” Ron, who for many years ran the Holden dealership in Bendigo, had already amassed a strong collection of cars, including a 1908 International buggy, a 1949 FX Holden, a 1924 Dodge Tourer and a 1968 Mercedes Sl sportscar.

“But I have always wanted a really early GM, because I have long been a Holden man,” he says. After hunting for many years for his dream car -- one that still retained traces of its original build -- Ron came up trumps in an unlikely corner of the internet: a US auction site. He spotted a 1905 Cadillac, housed in Seattle, and placed a bid. Soon the auction whittled down to Ron and another enthusiast, who, it later emerged, was bidding from Melbourne.

“So you had this situation of two of us in Victoria bidding for a car in Seattle on an American eBay site,” Ron says. Needless to say, Ron snapped up his dream car for a sum he is reluctant to reveal, but says he would have paid even more. The Cadillac turned out to be a beauty, with a rare one-cylinder 1.6-litre engine, with two-speed transmission. But the real selling point for Ron was the car's “originality”: it still had its original pistons and bearings.

“This is pretty remarkable for a car that is 108 years old,” he says. The car came with its original build sheet, which details the engine number, the type of suspension, what colour it was, and when it was built -- a dream cheat sheet for any restorer. Ron has already taken the body off the chassis, and will spend the coming months freshening up the paint work, fixing the upholstery and doing some light mechanical work on it.

This has not stopped him, mind you, from taking the car out for the occasional drive. “It goes beautifully and is very reliable, and wherever I go people are always so interested in it and the history,” Ron says. Even though it has been a few months since Ron first took delivery of his Cadillac the joy of the moment when he first laid eyes on it is as fresh as ever. “I went down to pick it up and to see it pushed out of the shipping container was very exciting,” he says. “As soon as I saw it, I was relieved and satisfied that it lived up to my expectations. Because if you buy something overseas, you are always taking a risk.”