VALE Bill Buckle
The Australian automotive industry has lost one of its most innovative and enthusiastic contributors in William Francis ‘Bill’ Buckle, who passed away on 9 May, aged 96.
Born into the industry, Buckle’s father owned a car dealership in the heart of Sydney, Buckle Motors, that initially carried Triumph and Talbot, but would later gain franchises for Armstrong-Siddeley, DeSoto, Citroen, Borgward, Hillman and Humber. Buckle Snr was a racing enthusiast, too, and passed this passion on to young Bill, who would take part in numerous events, including the Redex Trial, Australian GT Championship and five starts at the Armstrong 500/Gallaher 500 enduro in the 1960s.
In the early 1950s, Buckle travelled to the UK, where he was exposed to more racing, the British automotive industry and the emergence of fibreglass-bodied sportscars. Finding many of these to be lacking, both mechanically and aesthetically, Buckle thought he could do better, so developed his own sports prototype, which was unveiled at the Sydney Motor Show in 1955.
Based on a bespoke chassis developed by Ron Tauranac and using the six-cylinder engine, transmission, diff, brakes and other parts from a Ford Zephyr, as well as Peugeot-style front suspension, the Buckle prototype was well received, but many changes and refinements were made ahead of production, most notably to the fibreglass body. These included making it a fixed roof coupe (the prototype had a removable roof), reshaping the grille opening and altering the rear roofline, all of which improved the car’s appearance considerably.
Ultimately, only 20 units of the ‘Buckle Coupe’ were built over a four-year period, and while they were fully road legal, most were used for circuit and hill climb competition. Undeterred, Buckle next looked to smaller cars, signing a deal with Hans Glas in 1958 to distribute the German ‘Goggomobil’ microcar range in Australia.
To reduce import duty, Buckle only brought in the Goggo’s chassis (platform-type like a VW Beetle) and running gear. Using the experience he’d gained in fibreglass fabrication from the Buckle Coupe, new bodies were produced in this material instead of steel.
Buckle’s Goggomobil sedan, coupe and delivery van bodies were all to the original Glas style with minimal local modifications, but the ‘Dart’ was an all-Aussie creation.
Designed and manufactured by Buckle and a small local team, the Dart had no doors and only rudimentary weather protection to keep costs down. With a two-stroke engine of only 295cc capacity (a 394cc '400' version was available later), the Dart looked a lot faster than it was, but the distinctive style and low price (almost half what an Austin-Healey Sprite cost) meant it soon found an audience, and of the approximately 5,000 Goggomobils that Buckle produced locally, a little over 700 were Darts.
Australia’s ‘credit crunch’ of the early 1960s and the local arrival of the Mini brought Goggomobil production to an end in 1961. Buckle Motors was sold in the same year, but Bill immediately formed a new business, Bill Buckle Autos P/L, selling used cars on Sydney’s famous Parramatta Road auto strip.
An extension of this business, converting LHD American cars to RHD proved successful, as did sidelines in producing ‘fastback’ fibreglass bodies for Minis (aka Mini Monaco), fitting air conditioning and installing sunroofs in new and used vehicles, but taking on a Toyota franchise in 1964 would be the best business decision Buckle made. After a slow start, monthly sales at Bill Buckle Toyota increased more than twelvefold over a ten-year period.
Subaru, Volkswagen, Jaguar and Land Rover franchises would be added to the Bill Buckle Autos Group in the 1990s and 2000s. Eagers Automotive owned the group from 2008 to 2022, after which most of the Buckle dealerships were sold to AMG. By this stage, Buckle had retired, but his affection for the coupe that bore his name led him to track down and restore two examples in his later years.
In 2014, Buckle received an OAM for his services to the motor vehicle industry as a designer and retailer, followed by a Lifetime Achievement Award from Sailing Australia in 2015, recognising his other great love, yachting.
Of the 20 Buckle Coupes built, all bar three are still in existence and most of those are on the road (via bucklecoupe.com.au), but Dart survivors are proportionally fewer, with less than 100 thought to still be in circulation of the 700+ built.
JUST CARS extends its sympathies to Bill Buckle’s family and friends.
