Mick “Wheels” Curtin

Inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2011.

Mick Curtin was born in Foster Victoria in 1934. At the age of 14 he left the boy's home and worked in the bush. At 17 he started driving a friend's 1938 Maple Leaf truck and at 18 he bought his first truck, a 1942 Ford. He remembers that it looked good, went fast but couldn't pull a load.
Over the years Mick owned and drove many different trucks including Commers, Bedfords, Austins, Dodges and Mercedes, about 40 in total. His favourite truck was a 1958 petrol driven Commer which never let him down once in 5 very hard years of work.
Trucking and the timber industry was Mick's main livelihood for all of his working life. He has owned and driven trucks hauling logs or wood pulp, felled trees, stripped them, loaded them and owned three sawmills that processed them, and he still has all his fingers. Mick's logging was done in Victoria but during the winter when it was too wet to log he carted general freight between Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane.
The highlight of his career was the making of a Shell Rimula X Oil Commercial late in 1980 or early 1981 in which he drove a 1971 Benz 2224. Many other incidents happened over his working life including the time a chain broke and the load of logs ended up in the middle of the Princes Highway blocking it for a couple of hours until they could reload them.
Although he drove many different trucks the work was unbelievably hard on them in very rough, dirty, wet and difficult conditions. He did have his favourite truck, the 1958 Commer, but he also found his last 2 trucks, both Mercedes, very reliable.
Mick retired in 2008 after 56 years. He was always a well-liked man who was willing to help anyone in need. He is now enjoying some of the things that he didn't get to do during his working life.