Halfway through its incredible journey a 100-year-old replica of Bubsie arrives in the South West

Halfway through its incredible journey around the country, a 100-year-old car rolled into the South West last week, stopping off in Harvey to share a historic tale with the community.

A 1923 Citroen 5CV designed to be a replica of Bubsie — the first car to circumnavigate Australia — arrived in Harvey last week drawing school students out of class to admire the roadworthy relic.

The journey replicates the story of Neil Westwood and his colleague Greg Davies who set off from Bickley in Perth heading north to Darwin in 1925.

Their journey marked the first time a car ever travelled from Western Australia to the Northern Territory, and after their five month journey, the first to circle the entire Australian continent.

The replica car’s restoration lead, Warren May, said the journey of Bubsie was a true West Australian story.

Mr May first laid eyes on the classic car in 2023, which was in what he described as a “pretty sad state”.

However, over the next four months, he and a team of others would bring the car back to life, recreating the original Bubsie — which is on show at the National Museum — down to the original paint colour.

“We brought the car back to South Australia and stripped it right down, every nut and bolt,” he said.

“There’s 800 man hours that have gone into bringing it back to life.”

With a maximum speed of about 30km/h this Bubsie isn’t travelling Australia on its own steam, though it is taking the same route, stopping at towns across the region on it’s journey.

The car arrived in Manjimup earlier last week, before landing in Harvey on Thursday and spending the weekend in Bunbury, though Mr May said as it gets closer to where the original journey began, its connection to the region is becoming more apparent.

“There’s a lot of relatives down this way, in Busselton the other day, a guy came up to meet us and said ‘I’m the grandson of the guy who did the journey,’ which was amazing,” he said.

“It’s been a fantastic trip, and we’re looking forward to continuing.”