UNICAR

UNICAR is the magazine of the Melbourne University Car Club.

The initial magazine of the club was called Unbalanced Notes, with the first edition published in October 1955 when the club was re-formed. The editor of the earliest editions is unknown but it appears that Brian Fleming wrote the first edition and that the Club Secretary, Bruce Ackland, was editor from March 1957 until March 1958. Ian McDonald was then elected editor at the 1958 Annual General Meeting.

Someone obviously thought there should be a better name for the magazine and a competition was conducted among members in mid 1958. The winner with the suggestion of “Unicar” was Bruce Ackland, then the club’s Competition Secretary. As he already had what was offered as the prize, a club radiator badge, he donated the badge to the CAMS collection of Australian Car Club badges.

The first edition of “Unicar” was published in August 1958, edited by Ian McDonald from the Geology School.  Other editors were Andrew Burston (1960-64), Brian Fleming (1965-66) and Bill Denvil (1964-65 and 1966-68). From April 1968 until early 2012, it was edited by Don Humphries – an amazing 44 years. Don put countless hours into collating motorsport results and information and Unicar in its day became a much used reference for motoring journalists. While almost every edition was published one or two months after its labelled date, Don was fastidious about not skipping an edition. He kept progress scores for all motorsport series of interest to members, including Formula 1, World Rally Championship, Australian Rally Championship, Australian Sporting Car Championship, Victorian Rally Championship and the TAUCC Championship. If you are looking for motorsport results from the past, try Unicar. 

Following Don’s death, no other member was willing to put the time and effort into continuing the publication of such a comprehensive magazine. But Unicar did continue in an abbreviated electronic format thanks to the efforts of Peter Otzen. It’s now called e-Unicar and is restricted to information more directly relevant to club members.

We believe we now have copies of every edition of Unbalanced Notes and Unicar published by MUCC. Included is the February 2012 edition, largely compiled by Don but published after his death. The MUCC magazine tracks changes in “standard” paper sizes, being published in foolscap from the beginning until January 1971, in quarto from February 1971 to December 1985 and A4 with the now familiar blue cover from January 1986 thereon.

Most editions of Unicar from late 1971 are also available from the National Library in Canberra. To view an edition of Unbalanced Notes, see below. To view an edition of Unicar, see the table below that.