It is with sadness that we share the news of the passing of Dr. Stuart Saunders, co-founder of the Binalong Motor Museum. John Partridge has kindly put together some words celebrating Dr. Saunders’ life and love of golden era automobiles, which you can read below.
Vale: Dr. Stuart Saunders
With thanks to John Partridge
I was saddened last week to learn of the recent death of Dr Stuart Saunders, co founder with John Fitzpatrick of the Binalong Motor Museum. In his profession Stuart was a skilled ophthalmologist and eye surgeon, originally from the UK and based in Canberra. In historic vehicle circles he was better known for the museum. This housed a restoration workshop and an eclectic collection of vehicles and related items which had attracted his attention over the years, ranging in size from motor scooters and a Fiat 500 to a recreation of a particular late ’50s Indy car.
For many visitors the standout exhibit was an Edwardian recreation of Stuart’s own construction, the MAB. MAB, I learned, was a French or Belgian manufacturer of car components, enough or almost enough to build a complete car but never did so themselves.
Stuart uncovered in Wagga (!!!) what he was able after considerable research to identify as a 1908 MAB chassis, almost complete but without engine. The drive was by huge chains and sprockets reminiscent, to those with childhood memories stretching back as far as mine, of the chains and sprockets pictured in my first “machinery” book, operating “Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel” as it dug “faster and faster”. Stuart sourced from the USA as a power plant for this vehicle a huge V 12 Liberty aero engine, if my memory serves correctly of 27 litres capacity and with exposed valve gear. Quite a sight in operation.
The completed vehicle acquired ACT registration (pre historic rego days?) and was driven by him from time to time back and forth between Binalong and Stuart’s surgery in Canberra. I recall seeing it perform a couple of demonstration laps around the Canberra Showground oval track, throwing up a rooster tail of harness track dirt and looking very much like the the old black and white photographs of the heroes of motor racing in Edwardian times. This occasion must have been when the Bicentennial Motoring Rally overnighted in Canberra, well before Summernats cars came to shatter the peace of nearby residents. The car was referred to always as the MAB but Fiat aficionados familiar with the famous Beast of Turin of similar period, might have subtitled it the Beast of Binalong.
Another of Stuart’s creations was a V12 Jaguar powered, beautifully crafted, cycle mudguarded monoposto more often to be used for his commutes between Binalong (where I believe he lived) and Canberra where he practised.
I visited the museum several times, including once with CLA and once with FCACT but sadly
the museum closed down several years ago, perhaps with the onset of COVID, and last I heard was that its contents were to auctioned off by Donnington Auctions.
Vale Stuart Saunders, truly an enthusiast of golden era motoring.
John Partridge