Harley's collection a window into our proud motoring past

Stepping through the garage to his office, Harley Jones says he lied when he told me earlier, that he had10,000 motoring magazines in his collection.

“It’s actually 9,992,” corrects Harley, as he brings up the grand total on his purpose-made database.

But that too turns out to also be a lie, as they are just the magazines he has catalogued so far.

“There's a shed full that —  they're like all those, that I haven’t gone through,” continues Harley, pointing to two, full plastic storage tubs against one wall of the otherwise neat and tidy office. The walls are lined floot-to-ceiling with matching bookshelves containing scores of colour-coded magazines boxes and an assortment of car-related collectables.

“So it's gotta be another two or three thousand — somewhere there, the shed’s chocka’s!”

And that, he says, is the problem.

A “self-proclaimed Australian motoring magazine historian”, Harley has been collecting bike, cars, and truck magazines for the past 40 years, with a dream of one day putting together a history on the topic.

But with an ever-growing collection — currently covering 615 separate titles — he’s decided it’s time to narrow the focus, and he’s now looking for other interested collectors to give some of his magazines a good home.

“I want to get rid of all of the British stuff and American stuff, I just got to get rid of it and cut back to only collecting Australian magazines,” says Harley, who’s looking to trade or sell — at a reasonable price — in order to help complete his Australian collection.

And given that many of the magazines were given to him, he’d like to donate money from their sale to charity.

“Rather than just going to a tip — you cry when you see it… I want to try and swap them, or sell them off and do it to a cancer charity,” said Harley. “I'm not trying to rip anybody off, I'm not that sort of person. As I said, a lot of them, people gave me.”

More than just collectables, Harley sees real value in these magazines as a historical record. Not only are they a snapshot in time of motoring history, but also a colourful glimpse into society when they were produced.

“Magazines have shown trends and fashions, you know, everybody wanted Holdens in their car magazines and then you've got things like ‘Hot Fours’ and ‘Performance’ magazines… there was a turbo period and I've got these 300 magazines out there on diesel cars. I don't want them; If anybody's into diesel cars, boy, it's a fantastic collection.

“Then there's all sorts of motorbikes, they've gone from a general motorbike to… now, we've got the adventure bikes — they're the flavour of the month. 

“And the advertisement and the jokes and all that — talk about ‘politically correct’, boy! We could get hung if we did some of them now! And advertising; every magazine at one stage had Camel cigarettes or something — that's what paid their magazines.”

Harley has even gone so far as to track down the editors and contributors of some of the magazines in his collection, and says the stories behind them are just as interesting.

“You talk to them and they started off on the smell of an oil rag… I don't think they got a lot of money out of it all, it was a love of the theme, and the job.”

Haley regularly has people track him down after hearing about his collection and he is often called on to give presentations to car clubs and other interested groups.

In the meantime, he is quite busy hunting down missing issues and adding them to his catalogue.

“I read half of them, that's the trouble!” says Harley, who indexes each new addition in his database.

“Pam (my wife) says how many did you enter today? I go and type in the indexes, but then, of course, I have a look at [a car’s] horsepower and look at other things… But yeah. Anyway, it's a joy!”

Any collectors interested in Harley’s British and American motoring magazines, can contact Orange City Life and we’ll put you in touch.