Melbourne University Car Club

The Melbourne University Car Club was formed in the first half of 1938. However, wartime fuel shortages in 1941 saw the club not continue into 1942.

The club was “re-formed” on 11 October 1955 at a meeting held in the History Lecture Theatre at Melbourne University. At that meeting, George Nekrasov was elected President, Nicholas de la Vatine Treasurer, Brian Fleming (who remained a member until his death in 2018) Secretary and a general committee comprising the aptly named Miss Bentley and Messrs Martin and Shea.

The objectives of the club as at 1980 are available in the document that each member was required to sign for the club to comply with student union requirements.

An association with CAMS commenced in 1958 and that became affiliation from 1 January 1960. The club initially focused on social style events but evolved to conduct rallies and motorkhanas, with the first open rally being held in 1960. In 1961, the open trial was renamed Akademos and has become one of Victoria’s longest held rallies, with the most recent edition being the MRF Tyres Akademos in 2019.

MUCC also developed a passion and expertise at race timing, in due course becoming the predominant timing team in Victoria. A notable role was timing both of Donald Campbell’s 1964 attempts at world speed records, the “land” one at Lake Eyre and the “water” one at Lake Dumbleyung.

There have been a few attempts to compile the history of MUCC. The most comprehensive is that compiled by Ros Otzen in 2005 – accessible via the “History to 2005” green button on this page. That includes considerable information about the 1938-1941 iteration of the club.

A year by year summary of some early years of the club’s history is available via the History 1955-1961 button. An abbreviated history of MUCC from 1955 to 1960 can also be found in the March 1971 edition of Unicar.

The “20 year history” and “40 year history” are the documents provided to members at the 20th and 40th anniversary dinners. The “40th” document doesn’t include any more written history than the “20th”.

Following the publication of the history complied by Ros Otzen, Don Humphries (Unicar editor) was working on extending that history but he wasn’t able to publish any further material prior to his death. If you can provide further history of MUCC, please contact us.