Mobile mourned

By Monique Ebrington
HEALESVILLE and Chum Creek have lost an iconic member of the community to the Black Saturday fires.
While the cream 1953 53/215 FX Holden may not come up on any official bushfire toll, the community is still reeling at the loss of The GAP Mobile.
Owner of The GAP Mobile, named after the number plates, Russell Clements drove it daily from his home in Chum Creek to Healesville High School where he worked as a teacher for 31 years.
Mr Clements says he had been overwhelmed by people asking him how The GAP Mobile went after the fires.
“People usually stop and ask, how’s your car? Once you tell them it’s totally destroyed they go silent for a bit and say how sad it is,” Mr Clements said.
Mr Clements and his wife Faye were visiting friends in Badger Creek when they got a call from their son saying he could see fire from his house down the road, and he was leaving.
Mr Clements tried to get back home, but with fire on either side of the road and people flashing their car lights to turn around, he turned back.
He returned, once the fire front had gone through, to find their house still standing and what Mr Clements says was their very shell-shocked dog Daisy.
The trees around the property, however, were burnt along with The GAP Mobile, a Navara dual-cab ute, two FX Holden utes and his workshed.
Mr Clements was quick to re-order his number plates, the Monday after the Black Saturday fires, with the intention of rebuilding another cream 1953 FX Holden with his sons.
“I’ve had the car since I started university in 1966. I courted my wife in that car. It was more than a car, it’s part of my family’s history,” he said.
Clearing his property and replacing the car restoration and farming tools that were in the shed is a higher priority than restoring the car straightaway, but he says the community will see The GAP Mobile again.