At 9.27pm on January 5, 1975 the MV Lake Illawarra, a bulk ore carrier, smashed into Pier 19 of the Tasman Bridge that spans the Derwent River in Hobart.
An eyewitness described what happened next: “The two sections of the roadway collapsed and the debris of the roadway just collapsed on to the ship. It started going down front first almost immediately. I saw a car and it careered straight off the end in a swallow dive.”
A total of four cars plunged over the edge and dropped 110 feet into the water. 12 people died in the Tasman Bridge disaster but as the photograph shows two cars managed to stop in time - just. Both were left with their front wheels dangling over the edge!
One was an EK Holden station wagon, the other (in the centre lane) was a dark green HQ Monaro GTS. The driver and passenger of the Monaro were Frank and Sylvia Manley. They’d bought the car just a few months before. And, believe it or not, they still own it.
As Sylvia Manley says, after the car became a part of Australian history they just couldn’t bear to part with it. Dramatic photos of the two Holdens perched on the edge of the bridge were shown all over the world.
The couple are still asked for interviews and in 2000 they agreed to take part in a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the Hobart disaster. In 2002 they were invited over to Wangaratta to show the GTS at the Monaro Nationals. They ‘enjoy’ this celebrity status up to a point, although Sylvia says there are still some days when she has trouble talking about what happened on that tragic day 33 years ago.
Her husband, Frank Manley, is a former racing driver who competed at the famous Longford circuit in an FE Holden in the early 1960s. He also raced at Baskerville and among other victories won the Touring Car Handicap at the December 1965 meeting: “the cagey Frank Manley took out the honours with Peter Finch second and Mike Dobson in third place,” reads the race report.
The likes of Garth Wigston and Wayne Mahnken were also competing in Holdens in that period, as was a young John Goss.
Frank’s sharp reactions (and the new Monaro’s improved brakes) probably helped save them that night. Another metre and, well, that’s not worth thinking about.
Now retired, the Manleys are aware of the potential value of the Monaro when they finally decide to sell it. Even if it wasn’t famous for its chillingly narrow escape from the Tasman Bridge disaster, it would still be worth quite a bit.
After all, there aren’t a lot of genuine one-owner HQ Monaros around (this one is an automatic) with less than 100,000 on the clock. Theirs was bought new on October 13, 1974, just before the arrival of the HJ series. Frank has all the original documentation, right down to the little swing tag that was tied to the steering wheel in the showroom. The dealer’s sticker is still on the back window.
They’ve also kept a lot of the newspaper clippings to show that this green Monaro is a very special one. And extremely lucky.
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