The proprietor of Malvern Star Cycles, Bruce Small, had one central promotional device; the record breaking rider Hubert ‘Oppy’ Opperman. In 1936 Oppy and Small were planning their assault on Billy Read’s 18 day 18 hour Fremantle to Sydney Record. The Eyre Highway was yet to be built and the seemingly unknowable west to east crossing retained an air of mystery and apprehension.

The support team found their navigator in Aubrey Melrose, ‘a talented master mechanic, motor cycle racer, car trial champion and surf lifesaver.’

By the time Melrose was recruited he had already crossed the Nullarbor seven times (he made 52 crossings in his life). Daily rehabilitation of the support vehicles, a 1936 Ford and a 19 Dodge, towing a caravan and a trailer respectively, as well as avoiding the worst tracks and scheduling riding around sand firming morning dews made him indispensable and Melrose and Opperman became lifelong friends.

Melrose was an enthusiast and among his many enthusiasms was a passion for photography. His life was well documented, sometimes literally from the driver’s seat. Despite having a dedicated photojournalist as part of the support team surviving photographs from the momentous transcontinental crossing are few. In just 23 frames over three rolls of film Aub Melrose managed to capture some of the most memorable moments of Oppy’s record ride.

Aubrey George Melrose was turning 40 the day after the Patriotic Grand Prix was raced on the streets of Applecross but he was a living contradiction to the old saying that “Life Begins at 40” - Aub Melrose had squeezed more into his first 40 years than many people would have thought possible in a lifetime.

In the 1920s he was a champion state surf lifesaver, surfboat captain for the Cottesloe club and the first person in the state to paddle a surf ski. His athletic build made him the “Charles Atlas” of Cottesloe Beach but it was with motorcycles that he found his greatest fame as a young man.

He joined the Coastals Motorcycle Club and won his first race on Fremantle Oval in 1923. He learned how to ride on the grass tracks at Fremantle and Claremont and his physical fitness held him in good stead on the longer trials events in the Hills area of Perth.

Aub was always looking for greater challenges. In 1929 he set out to become the first motorcyclist to ride from Kalgoorlie to Perth in a day. He accomplished the feat on a Sunbeam motorcycle in 12 hours four minutes, pushing through waterlogged conditions from Merredin to Perth when a cyclone came through. He later set a record on the route with his friend Roy Sharman who was a Gallipoli veteran, and motorcycle despatch rider during World War One.

Aged 27 he was in Britain seeking to show his skills on a bigger stage. He was already a seasoned traveller. As a 15 year old he had toured the world as a drum major in the band of the Young Australia League, having joined as a boy soprano when he was nine. He spoke on behalf of the YAL at the opening of the Panama Canal. At age 16 he had ridden his first motorcycle.

His motorcycling experience in Perth proved useful in England. He became the first Australian to finish an Isle of Man Tourist Trophy race coming 17th in the junior event with very little road racing experience to draw on. He went on to excel at international trials events riding for Sunbeam.

Aub and Sharman, who was also an accomplished trials rider, introduced scrambling to WA. Scrambling (today called motocross) was racing over rough cross-country surfaces and it was becoming popular in England.

The two friends developed a course at Mosman Park near the rope factory on Boundary Road and the first Harley Scrambles event was held there by the Harley-Davidson Club in 1928. The course was notoriously difficult with extremely steep climbs and tough downhill sections. “Rope Gangs” were used to haul competitors and their motorcycles up the steepest parts if they couldn’t climb the slope. Aub won three times in the early years.

His first success in four wheel vehicles came in the RAC’s 24 hours Centenary Motoring Trial in 1929. He won the event losing only 2 points out of the 600 available. But organised trials took second place to motor racing at Lake Perkolilli and on hillclimb tracks near Perth during those years.

The idea of a club for those who wanted to compete in their cars without high speed racing emerged when Aub Melrose met Neill Baird who had brought a new MG from England. The two formed the WA Car Club in the basement tearooms of Padbury House in Central Perth in June 1933.

The Club went from strength to strength catering for the sporting motorist who enjoyed trials and motorkhanas.

Aub Melrose had larger cars for daily use but it was with Austin Sevens that his fame spread in the motoring world.

In 1936, he won the South Australian Centenary Rally outright, beating 147 other competitors, in a 1929 Austin Seven which looked like it had seen better days. His winnings were many times greater than the 68 guineas he had paid for the ageing car which had 100,000 miles on the odometer and two engine rebores. He and his wife called the car “Baby Gay” after their son Graham and he spent three months rebuilding it to cope with the outback conditions.

Aub Melrose had become an expert on tuning Austin Sevens for reliability and performance and his garage was frequented by many sporting motorists and motorcyclists. He re-built his little car again and again for different events.

The Austin appeared in many racing events during the late 1930s culminating in his run at Patriotic Grand Prix raced on the streets of Applecross in 1940.

A British motoring magazine reported on his effort at the Patriotic GP: “Despite 130,000 miles to its credit, including sporting events of all kinds, and despite, moreover, having been turned over in practice, the little 90mph car held the lead for well over half the distance and looked like a sure winner. Then a head gasket “blew” and that was that.”

More practical pursuits such as selling and installing gas producers occupied most of his attention during the wars but he couldn’t help mixing adventures with business. He drove a gas producer powered car from Perth to Sydney on the newly completed Military Road across the Nullarbor and in doing so became the first civilian to accomplish the feat.

His little Austin Seven’s last competitive event was after the war in a petrol consumption test. The Austin was retired and Aub forged a new racing career at Caversham and later in the round Australia trials. At 60 years of age he was still racing cars and making a good account of himself in competition.

He was honoured by the Royal Automobile Club of WA in 2005 with a plaque on the Walk of Fame outside the club’s headquarters in Wellington Street. The plaques celebrate the greatest contributors to motoring in the last century, and there is no doubt that the man who drove an ageing supercharged Austin Seven in the Patriotic Grand Prix was a legend.

Aub Melrose will be remembered as a legend of the sport who had boundless energy and enthusiasm for the roar of the exhaust and the sight of the chequered flag ahead.

With thanks to Graeme Cox.