The older the better

Collector Michael Young has a passion for the early days of engine innovation.

“It's hard to actually put your finger on one, but I do have favourites here,” says Michael Young of the 20 or so large antique combustion engines that crowd his backyard shed and workshop.

“They'll usually be the earlier more interesting ones, but that might not be obvious to somebody else. Sometimes it's how they sound when they run or other times it'll be because of the effort I've put into it, something I've made a lot of parts for, that I slaved over. So the engines you put a lot of work into can become your favourite, just simply because you were so absorbed in getting it going.”

Growing up on a farm near at Boomey near Molong, Michael says he was always interested in engines and used to tinker with lawn mowers and old motorbikes.

“I didn't have the money or the skill to do anything with them, so all of it got sold on again, but I think that's where it came up. I like them because they were old, and I’d bring them home and probably used to annoy my parents no end!” he says.

It wasn’t until years later, after completing a science degree, starting a family and while working as a geologist in Victoria, that Michael interest in old engines was again reignited.

“It was a long while after that… we went to a steam fair at a place called Lake Goldsmith and I was just so taken back by all these old engines — these were steam traction engines and farm engines and old tractors and all sorts of things. I thought wow! That's amazing! And probably about a year later, I saw an old engine at a junk shopping in Ballarat and that was the beginning…

“And a fairly expensive sort of start, because I probably paid by too much for that, but I ended up tinkering with it and getting it going and that just sort of started the lot and it's just grown and grown and grown.”

The engines Michael collects are all stationary combustion engines used on farms.

“There’s no modern equivalent really, but in the days before electrification, farmers needed a form of motive power to drive machines — shearing sheds, saw bench, pumps, whatever it was — and that was provided by station engines. So electric motors are used now and you don't really notice. because they are hidden away and not that exciting really.”

But the engines of the early 20th Century were a brand-new technology, and it is the unusual innovations and variations between them that make them interesting, says Michael.

“In the 1890s steam engines ruled the world, they were the source of industrial power anywhere in the world and so internal combustion engines were the new technology that was coming in… And like when computers came in, there's all these different standards. Everybody was doing their own thing and there's lot of different designs; the English had their way of doing things; the Americans had their way of doing things and the Australians had their way of doing things.

“You'll see that with engines all made around the same time, that are widely different, but yet have the same horsepower and might have been doing the same sort of work. It’s amazing.

The majority of engines in Michael’s collection were made prior to 1920 and one most likely pre-1900.

While some collectors are fairly narrow in their focus, seeking out engines from particular countries of or single manufacturers, Michaels is (a little) less particular.

“Like any hobby — collecting stamps or cars — people can get very focused on a particular type. I tend to be fairly broad, everything before the 1920s is potentially of interest… But I prefer large engines over little ones. They’ve got to be reasonable sized to be of interest,” he says.

 “I’ve got about 20, but it’s not going to get much bigger… Living in town there is a limit to how much you're allowed to have in your yard before people start saying things — They’ve probably already started saying things!”