Malcolm Coombe

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2015.

Malcolm Coombe's parents operated a trucking business that started in 1947. He left school aged 14 and went as a lackey with his father, doing all the loading and unloading, some driving and repairs. Malcolm got his licence at 15 and started carting salt to Sydney via the Blue Mountains with his father. They took tyres to Perth and timber to Adelaide. In those days it was a dirt road from the tank turnoff at Port Augusta to seven miles east of Norseman Western Australia.

At 17 Malcolm was doing trips on his own driving an AEC Mandator. He also carted Valiant cars from Adelaide to Perth. Malcolm spent six months driving a Commer Knocker carting four Atco huts in pack form from Kalgoorlie to Mt Tom Price, Paraburdoo, Port Headland and iron ore camps. The dirt road started 40 kms from Kalgoorlie and on one trip the main beam that the BPW single point spring pivots on broke and Malcolm came to a sudden halt on the wrong side of the road with a load of Atcos. It took two weeks to get the parts from Melbourne and he had to fit them himself.

Malcolm worked for East Coast Transport driving a White 9000 with a GM6 motor. He then went to LS Booth Transport driving a 160 International or a 1418 Mercedes. Malcolm drove for Dave Rodwell running from Adelaide to Brisbane carting GMH loads either in a Volvo G89 or a Kenworth 125 with a 355 Cummins motor. Loads also included conveyor belts from Sydney to the iron ore mines in the Pilbara. The load was three rolls of belting tarped to look like tyres, it weighed 53 tonnes, stood 4.8 metres high on a bogie tri flat top. The route was over the Blue Mountains and west to Western Australia or Mt Isa on to Halls Creek, all done with 330 to 335 HP motors.

Malcolm then drove fuel tankers for Friendly Transport running Adelaide to Mildura. He has owned trucks including a Kenworth 125, Volvo G88 and N10, Ford Louisville and an R Model Mack carting to Brisbane. Malcolm then gave owning trucks away and worked for OD & E shifting oil drilling rigs at Moomba for three years and Libya for two years. He then drove for Cootes Transport running LPG tankers to Perth and Darwin.

In November 1990 Malcolm moved to Scott's Transport carting general freight for ten years, including uranium shipments from Roxby Downs to Adelaide. He then transferred to tankers running to Moomba, Cooper Basin, Leonora, Granite Mines, Darwin and Yulara. In November 2015 Malcolm will have been with Scott's Transport for 25 years.