Vale Cliff Byfield: 100 years of flying high to a solid grounding in classic cars

Cliff Byfield, coachmaker extraordinaire, died on July 12 aged 102. The Motor Museum of Western Australia said Cliff was “truly an extraordinary person.”
Writing in its newsletter, the museum said: “His love for the Motor Museum and its volunteers was unwavering. Many volunteers will fondly remember the familiar sight of Cliff arriving with shopping bags full of biscuits — his way of showing appreciation for the care and attention we give to his beloved vehicles. Cliff was a legend in the classic car movement for his unique designs and brilliant skills in custom body building for classic vehicles. Cliff has three of his one-off design cars in the museum. The one-off vehicles produced by Cliff are truly unique and world class. The three we have on display draw admiration from our visitors and are among the most photographed by them. Remarkably, the Riley body was completed when Cliff was well into his nineties and even more remarkable, Cliff was still working on projects in his workshop until quite recently. Cliff was certainly a true master craftsman. The world has lost a master craftsman, but his legacy lives on.”

Almost two years before he died, and interviewed in his shed amongst sheets of steel and ply, lengths of ash and various machines for working metal and wood, Cliff took me back a few years on his life.

A MOMENT in time. The Messerschmidt lines up on the empty Lancaster as it leaves Germany. Its aim is squarely at the top gunner sitting midships. Suddenly the gunner drops the barrels downwards, rises and salutes the German pilot. Taken as a mark of respect, the pilot turns his plane away and raises his arm to return the salute.

A moment in time. The German pilot doesn’t know why the gunner didn’t fire but instead saluted him. Cliff Byfield, then a teenage airforce crew, remembers it as a fortuitous reaction. The Lancaster had finished its bombing run and after numerous encounters that night with enemy aircraft, had depleted its ammunition. It was something the Messerschmidt pilot never knew and something Cliff Byfield knew too well.

It was 20,000 feet above a hostile German city, a world and 13,600km away from the country town of Northam where the Lancaster gunner, 19 year-old Cliff Byfield, grew up.

This is 1942 and this flight is his 30th mission. Two more to go and he’s finished his tour. But as he would soon find out, his 30th is his last.

Within a year, after being honourably discharged on RAF medical concerns that frostbite damage to his hands from high-altitude flights would render his fingers useless, he would be grounded in a trade in Perth, Western Australia, finishing his apprenticeship in the motor trade that he left as war pulled him to Europe.

Not only did Cliff Byfield survive a wartime role that clipped the lives of thousands of airmen, but he dodged ailments and outlived his peers and some family members and today — two months after his 100th birthday — he is still in his backyard shed in Perth, building cars.

“It’s what I get up for every morning,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine not doing this.”

It’s 85 years since the 15-year-old Northam boy was inducted into an apprenticeship with Perth vehicle body builders Bryan’s Motor Body Works.

“There were four other apprentices — one in upholstery, two in woodwork and one panel beating — already in training. I started in panel,” he said.

“Bodywork was big business then because cars were bought as a chassis and drivetrain, and the customer then had to find a bodybuilder who could make what he wanted.”

At that time, Bryan’s advertised across Australia an drew a sting audience. In its advertisement from the 1950s, it said: “Bryan Body Cars are the very last word in modern design. Graceful, pleasing, and distinctive. Superiority is apparent at a glance in every body built by Bryan, and every body built by Bryan’s in Western Australia is a direct contribution to the wealth of this State and a step forward in its development.”

Cliff said that Bryan’s wasn’t alone in securing customer orders in Perth.

“There was other businesses around at that time included Boltons (still going) and at least two no longer in business including Nixon’s (Martin Nixon),” he said.

Early work included building the first truck bodies for (the late) Stan Perron (later WA’s richest man with property interests and who also took on the state distributorship — retained to this day — of then-unknown brand Toyota) who had contracts for carting manganese.

“I always wanted to build a car, but a car that I thought would have the best features,” he said.

He finished his first, a head-turning coupe based on the running gear of a Citroen, in 1955.

Three years later he completed a roadster based on a Jaguar Mk IV and in 1959 he used Holden running gear as the basis for his third car, made for local identity Jack Ayers.

“I’ve made 15 cars, all designed and built by myself,” he said.

“For many, many years, the only cars I drove were the cars I built myself.

“One was made for my wife, which had the engine and things like the grille and headlights from a Jaguar Mk V, but which I fitted an automatic transmission which is what she preferred.”

Four of his cars are on show at the Whiteman Park Motor Museum, just east of Perth.

These include the “Byfield Jaguar” based on an XK120; and one on a Riley chassis and another using the Jaguar Mk V as its donor.

His cars are adventurously styled, with body panels and guards shaped in the style popularised in the 1950s and designed to reflect grandeur and status.

Asked what he thought of today’s cars, he said “no car has presence” on the road.

“There’s no art in car design anymore. Only one or two stand out,” he said.

“Cars just seem the same with designers reduced to minor differences between makes and models, only putting something like a crease somewhere to distinguish it.

“I’d love to get hold of a hybrid and build a body on top of that. I can see that being very interesting and perfect for today’s market. ”

Making cars didn’t make Cliff rich — although it did give him strong standing in the automotive community — with solid income then earned from building far less attractive vehicles.

“I’ve never worked for anyone since finishing my apprenticeship,” he said.

“When I got my trade, I did pretty well building roll-over protection (ROPs) cabs for trucks and machinery including D9s and other tractors.

“I made these cheaper and stronger than what the factory were supplying and I could customise them to fit the customers’ needs.

“But when ROPs became mandatory, the tractor and truck manufacturers wouldn’t allow aftermarket work so that greatly reduced my work.”

Work didn’t just dry up, however, as Cliff’s reputation for quality attracted customers including classic car owners and repairers needing bodywork panels and frames.

He also built the bodywork for the biggest truck made in Australia, the Rhodes Ridley that was built to haul huge ore loads in outback Western Australia.

Built in the 1950s, it used two diesel engines alongside each other, mated to a gearbox from a Sherman tank.

It was almost the width of a two-lane road and could haul 210 tonnes but because of changes to the road rules, never shifted a gram.

Instead it spent its life as a mobile mining plant. It has been restored and still gets out of its shed for demonstrations.

“I was always being asked to do work on people’s cars and I can’t see that ending,” Cliff said.

“There are a couple of people around still doing this work.”

But he knows that the trade is running thin of qualified people.

“The problem is there’s not many people coming through the trades that work on older cars,” he said.

“There’s a shortage of people working on bodywork, those who can work with steel and aluminium and stainless steel, and those who can build wood frames because a lot of the earlier cars used wood for the body.

“Then there’s also not many around with experience in trimming, in upholstery and soft-top roofs.

“So as people collect more older cars, there’s more work needed to repair and restore them, but less tradesmen able to do the jobs. It’s a problem.”

Cliff is working on the body of an Alvis. The four guards, rolled and hand-beaten in heavy-gauge aluminium, are complete, as is the surround of the ‘dicky seat’.

The aluminium panel for the seat is being finished and will sit over the timber frame, also made by Cliff from Tasmania blue-gum.

“It’s a strong wood with straight grain so it’s perfect for this job,” he said.

“I also like the fact that it is a sustainable timber.”

Panels are curved over dollys and the English wheel to roll the shape.

These are only some of the machines and dies and tools that sit in a composite series of roofs that cover Cliff’s workshop, open to the weather at the gables and clearly draughty in winter.

He complains about the mosquitoes — the Swan River is close — but he is more concerned that, at his age, standing with the aid of a walking frame while holding and beating metal into shape is very difficult with only two hands.

“Someone suggested hanging a rope cradle from the roof to support me so I can use both my hands. It’s not a bad idea,” he said.

“What’s next? I still have to finish this Alvis and there’s a few other things to do after that. It’s always busy.”

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